About
The UTMB germ-free mouse facility (GFF) provides service to entire UTMB community to breed mice in germ-free conditions and colonize them with selected commensal/probiotic/pathogenic bacteria (gnotobiotic animals) or reconstitute germ-free mouse with
human fecal microbiota (humanized gnotobiotic animals). Housed on the ground floor of the Medical Research Building (MRB), the GFF is supported by the IHII, the Office for Research, the ARC, a University of Texas System STARs award, and the John Sealy
Memorial Endowment. The equipment in the facility includes three double-tier flexible film isolator tables, which accommodate six bubbles/~90 standard mouse cages, a 50-cage breeder isolator unit, five sterilizing cylinders, three sterilizing table
units and three atomizer units; an ISOcage bioexclusion system (30 cages); two Class II Biological Safety Cabinets; two dedicated autoclaves.
Service Fees
C57BL/6NTac, axenic: $90/mouse
Isolator use*- grant-funded: $2,500/isolator/month
Isolator use*- not grant-funded: $900/isolator/month
*The minimum fee is for 2 months (e.g., $5,000/isolator for a grant-funded project or $1,800/isolator for a non-grant-funded project), which covers one-month-long isolator start-up preparation.
Germ-free facility technician services**: $80/hr
**This only applies to technicians' experiment/project-specific activities such as experimental item preparation, animal manipulations (e.g., weighing, identification application, genotyping, gavage, tail vein injection, mating, plug-checking), sample
collection, and relevant record keeping. General husbandry activities are covered by isolator use fees.