Share thisInhalation studies require specialized equipment, specialized design, and specialized operational protocols for a safe facility.
Animal research on the health effects of exposure to airborne contaminants has been going on for many years. The earliest studies coincided with outbreaks of the plague and smallpox. Later research addressed our concerns about nuclear fallout and radiation contamination. Today, this research continues for similar reasons: SARS, influenza, environmental pollution, and airborne bioweapons. What has changed is the sophistication of the equipment used to understand the impact of inhaled or other types of exposure to a wide variety of contaminants that can affect human and animal health. Also, in some cases, the toxicity of some of the potential contaminants requires highly sophisticated building systems and operational protocols to prevent the occurrence of accidental exposure. This article will explore some of the new equipment used in today’s inhalation research, its impact on facility design, and the associated cost implications.
Types of Exposure and Equipment
Two different approaches are common in today’s research into airborne contamination studies:
- at the impact caused by direct inhalation of contaminants.
- entire animal is exposed to the contaminants. This approach looks at both inhalation and the potential absorption of the contaminant through the skin.
Each of these approaches requires a different type of exposure equipment. The nose only equipment allows for much higher density of animals exposed at one time and therefore requires less square footage than systems where the entire animal is exposed. In many cases, both approaches and types of equipment are used. Figure 1 illustrates a nose only device that is capable of exposing 64 animals at one time in a fairly compact space. Figure 2 illustrates a caging system where the entire animal is housed, obviously requiring larger areas. In order to determine the size of the exposure area, the number of animals required in each study and the type of exposure must be determined. There are many manufacturers of animal exposure holding equipment, and a knowledge of the research protocols, types of contaminants to be used, and the length of the exposure all come into play in selecting the most appropriate equipment.
Figure 1:
Modular Nose Only Inhalation Exposure System
(CH Technologies (USA), Inc.; Photographer: D. Margolin)
Figure 2:
Six Chamber Whole Body Aerosol Inhalation Exposure Unit
(CH Technologies (USA), Inc.; Photographer: D. Margolin)