MUN's new $36M animal centre will house mice, woodchucks and exotic swine

Woodchucks and Yucatan minipigs are just two of the species that will be housed at Memorial University's new animal research building.

The new $36-million Animal Resource Centre, which is receivingboth federal and provincial money,willreplace the university's five-decade-old ARC facility.

"It's being built for MUN's animal care and use program," said the university's veterinarian Jennifer Keyte.

We're very fortunate here at Memorial University to have an exotic swine herd.- Jennifer Keyte

"And it will house the work that's being done by researchers and teaching faculty with the faculties of medicine, the school of pharmacy and also the school of science."

Keyte, the director of animal-care services,says the newbuilding is necessary for the university to keep its certificate of good animal practice from the Canadian Council on Animal Care,thenational body that regulates all animal care and use for animals, including the ethical use of animalsfor research and teaching.

"The standards for animal facilities are stronger, more robust, now than they were when the current facilities were built," she said.

"Memorial does hold a certificate of good animal practice but the CCAChas identified that our facilities no longer meet the standards.Sothat was the need for this new building."

Woodchucks and exotic swine

Keytesays the new facility will carry out research on 'the usual suspects," such as rats and mice, but will also be home to some less common species.

"We've got researchers who look into infectious diseases with awoodchuck model and we are very fortunate here at Memorial University to have an exotic swine herd so these are Yucatan minipigs," she said.

Keytesays woodchucks areuseful for studying thehepatitis virus.

"The progression of the disease in woodchucks reallyclosely mirrors that in humans, and yet the woodchuck hepatitis virus is not infectious to humans." she said.

Yucatan minipigs are also good for research much better than more common pigs that may weight 300 kilograms.

"So, you don't want something that big. The minipigsmax out at around 60 kilograms so they are close to the size of an adult human, and the swine heart, for example, closely mirrors that of the human heart. Also the whole digestive system and the swine eye is very close to the human eye," said Keyte.

2 years from moving in

The new building isscheduledto be completed at the end of 2019.

"But then we have an extensive period of commissioning, which means checking all of the systems. We need to verify that everything is working. So it will bethe latter half of 2020 before we have completely moved in," said Keyte.

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