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Report of the NIH Rat Model Repository Workshop

To coordinate the extramural NRGRC activities with the intramural NIH Genetic Resource (NGR).

The major role of the NGR is to serve the intramural program at NIH. In addition, the NGR has undergone several reductions in support and size, resulting in the loss of nearly half of its maintained rat strains. Therefore, despite the recognition of the value of the existing resource (approximately 100 cryopreserved strains and approximately 30 strains maintained as breeding nuclei; 5 breeding pairs), there is an urgent need for an additional program to serve the extensive needs of the extramural community. The two programs must be coordinated to prevent needless duplication. For this report, the participants assumed the NGR would remain at its current number of maintained strains. Any reduction in the intramural program, therefore, would require an equivalent increase in the extramural program to maintain the minimum number of strains.

To develop a cost-effective central resource that will maintain the maximum number of strains without compromising the quality of strains.

Developing the costs for the NRGRC consumed a large portion of the discussions. The Appendix covers the assumptions and costs breakdown: the assumptions were used to derive the first 5-year budget at $35 million in broad terms. The review group for the competitive applications will be charged with selecting the best center, based on a variety of criteria including cost-effectiveness. However, the most important criteria must be the genetic and microbiological quality of the animals.

The total budget cost includes $5 million in equipment and one-time start-up costs, leaving $30 million with an assumed 50 percent indirect cost, reducing the direct cost to $20 million, or $4 million per year direct cost. The major costs involve the rederivation (cesarean section) of all strains and the per diem cost (approximately 4 times the mouse) as well as the cost for developing the initial infrastructure for the resource. A critical aspect of the NRGRC will be to provide animals for experimentation, as well as breeder stocks and cryopreserved embryos, to the widest possible scientific community. Therefore, the NRGRC will serve both as a repository of well-characterized animals and will stimulate the use of the animals as important biomedical models. The participants chose to leave cost recovery to the applicants and the Advisory Board of the selected center. The participants chose not to project costs required beyond the initial 5-year budget. However, it is clear that the NIH must plan to maintain long-term support of the NRGRC for it to succeed. For example, the annual direct costs for the Jackson Laboratory are currently approximately $3.5 to $4 million per year after a long history of serving as a central repository for the mouse.

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