Case Study:
The Jackson Laboratory
The Jackson Laboratory mice share 95 percent of the same genes as humans and have become an effective and efficient model for genetic research pertaining to human diseases. One of the world’s leading distributors of human disease mouse models is The Jackson Laboratory, an independent and nonprofit biomedical research institution with locations in Bar Harbor, Maine and Sacramento, California.
Jackson’s mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases. Jackson also provides educational and research resources to the worldwide biomedical research community by serving as a global collection and distribution point for valuable mouse models of human diseases through its JAX® Mice & Services division. Currently, Jackson provides over 5,000 varieties of mice, with approximately 135 strains in active production colonies, an additional 1,000 strains in small live colonies and the remainder available as cryopreserved germplasm (sperm or embryos) which can be readily recovered upon request. Their repository has more than 2,100 targeted and 1,000 transgenic mutant mouse lines with 500 new lines imported each year. Many are models for cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal muscular atrophy, Huntington's disease and various autoimmune diseases. In 2010, 2.9 million JAX® Mice were distributed to approximately 19,000 investigators in more than 800 institutions around the world.
To better serve the biomedical research community and increase its capability to manage the health of a growing number of mouse lines, Jackson opened a new 22,500 square-foot Importation and Isolation Facility in 2010 with a 5,000-cage capacity quarantine room for receiving, housing and processing all imported mice of unknown health status delivered from institutions around the world.
In the quarantine room, Innovive disposable caging is used and each week technicians perform complete cage changes on every mouse — checking the animal, removing old bedding, feeding and watering and taking blood samples. Because each cage is considered a contaminant due to the unknown health of the mice, it can only be opened and changed within a biological safety cabinet. To protect the safety of the technicians and the mice, it is critical to keep the work environment absolutely free from contamination.
Changing the cages in the old mouse importation building was inefficient. It required moving the cages to stationary biological safety cabinets situated on the room’s perimeter — a difficult task given the heavy cage racks had to be moved 20 to 30 feet, locking and unlocking them along the way. As such, the new Importation and Isolation Facility presented an opportunity for Jackson to improve workflow efficiencies in the quarantine room and assess the equipment utilized in order to make the cage-changing process faster and more ergonomic to help reduce repetitive motion injuries and fatigue.
During the design phase, engineers and facility managers from Jackson worked closely together to develop a new workflow process. They concluded that a biological safety cabinet, which could be accessed from both sides and placed in line with a row of cage racks (instead of at the end of an aisle), could create a more ergonomic and efficient cage changing process.
At the time, a biological safety cabinet with a double-sided capability was not available in the marketplace. In the summer of 2009, Jackson approached several biological safety cabinet (BSC) manufacturers but found The Baker Company, located in Sanford, Maine, to be the most qualified manufacturer to collaborate on the development of a new cabinet with such unique design and functionality. The Baker Company was selected for several reasons, including:
- 60 years of expertise in designing personnel protection and containment equipment for the laboratory;
- Willingness to offer creative solutions and work collaboratively with Jackson team members; and
- Ability to meet an aggressive timeline to have the new biological safety cabinet tested and ready for operation by July 2010.
Animal facility managers and engineers from The Jackson Laboratory and engineers from The Baker Company began working together to design the SterilGARD® Duo Biosafety Cabinet. The collaboration took place while the new Importation and Isolation Facility was being constructed and the new workflow process for the quarantine room was only in the planning stage.
“It took significant collaboration to bring this project about,” said Rick Burne, senior project manager, The Jackson Laboratory. “Many of the biological safety cabinet manufacturers we spoke to tried to push me into a cabinet that already existed with some modifications.”
Burne continued: “I knew that approach would not work and that we had to start from the ground up, because what we were proposing was a completely new idea. In the end, The Baker Company was the only company that would do this with us. We worked closely together as a team making minor adjustments throughout the design and development phases of the SterilGARD® Duo Biosafety Cabinet. It was a great process and The Baker Company listened carefully to our requests and delivered exactly what we needed.”
In addition to being double-sided, the new SterilGARD® Duo Biosafety Cabinet includes many unique features, designed with ergonomics and efficiency in mind as well as personnel, product and environment protection. The cabinet has a deep well that allows for easier cage changing; has a lower work surface level to store supplies such as grain, water bottles and bedding; hydraulic adjustment capability to meet individual height and work requirements; and control functions and adjustments which can be made from either side. Access to the work area via the sash is restricted to one side at a time. The bottom of the cabinet includes two ports or dumping bins for removal of supplies — one for waste such as dirty bedding and the other for recyclable/reusable materials including the cages.
New functionality was also included in the cabinet design to help improve the ergonomics of the cage-changing process and prevent repetitive motion injuries. For example in the old work environment, technicians were responsible for manually twisting off the water bottle caps as they replaced them. For the new cabinet, a pneumatic water bottle capper was developed to automate this function and The Baker Company designed a bracket receiver to hold the unit. Further, a solution was developed to allow water bottles to be emptied within the new biological safety cabinet itself, making the task easier and safer for technicians. In the past, a technician had to remove the individual water bottles from the cages, place them on a cart, typically 50 at a time, and manually empty each bottle into a sink. In the new biological safety cabinet, the bottle can be emptied within the personnel containment environment and the dirty water is channeled through a hose connected to the cabinet, to a floor drain and finally out to the house waste system.
“With the implementation of this new biological safety cabinet, we knew were going to have to train our technicians,” said Dan Myrick, quarantine room lead, The Jackson Laboratory. “The learning curve on this changing table was short even with the cabinet’s technological sophistication and all the touch screen controls. Plus, Baker has been there every step of the way to help answer questions — their customer service has been absolutely superb.”
The results of this collaboration were significant. The SterilGARD® Duo Biosafety Cabinet was designed, tested and produced in less than 12 months. Most importantly, the Importation and Isolation Facility workflow process using the new cabinet design achieved incredible efficiencies. Today, the technicians are able to complete box changes on an average of 2,200 mice in only two days. Previously, they were only able to change about 1,200 boxes over the course of four days. Because of the unique design of the new work environment and the SterilGARD® Duo Biosafety Cabinet, workplace efficiency has increased by at least 50 percent.
In addition to increasing the efficiency of the cage-changing process, Jackson wanted to improve the overall work environment for its technicians, making it easier and more comfortable for them to perform their jobs. The SterilGARD® Duo Biosafety Cabinet was designed with many ergonomic features to help prevent repetitive motion injury and reduce fatigue and accidents, further increasing productivity.
The health and safety of the technicians were also critically important. The Lab reports that two technicians who were experiencing severe allergy symptoms from working with the mice have benefitted from using the new cabinet. The SterilGARD® Duo Biosafety Cabinet’s air curtain which creates a high-velocity filtered air barrier has allowed these technicians to eliminate the need for an air hat (powered air-purifying respirator) and perform their duties wearing only the required surgical masks.
While the health and safety of the technicians has been greatly improved, Jackson is also now better able to maintain mouse colonies at its gold standard health and genetic quality status — critical to its mission.
