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.

Contacts

Yingzi Cong, PhD
Director
yicong@utmb.edu

Maki Wakamiya, PhD
Technical Director
mawakami@utmb.edu

Address

Germ-free Mouse Facility
The University of Texas Medical Branch
MRB 1.554
301 University BLVD
Galveston, TX 77555

Advisory Committee

Ashok Chopra, Chair
Scott Weaver
Douglas Brining
Andrew McNees
Shelly Buffington
Sara Dann
Qingjie Li
Maki Wakamiya
Yingzi Cong

Services

Production of germ-free mice
Housing of gnotobiotic mice
Housing of humanized gnotobiotic mice
Consultation for study development and experimental design

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.