CHE Facility

Unique Resources and Specialized Facilities

CHE is located on the Southern boundary of the UCD campus on 15.75 acres of land. The laboratory complex consists of sixteen buildings with a total of 57,614 square feet.

Office and Laboratory Space

CHE has a local area network that is tied into the campus UCDNet and the Internet. The main building has a secure 700 square foot computer room for network hardware and departmental servers. There are 75 network connections scattered across 7 buildings. All network connections on site are 100Base-T. The link to the campus network and the Internet is gigabit Ethernet. A staff Information Systems Manager is responsible for the network and computer facility.

Two laboratory buildings provide specialized facilities at CHE. The cell biology building has three laboratories that are designed and equipped for tissue culture. Air flow in the building is designed to provide positive pressure in the laboratory and, thereby, reduce the risk of outside contamination.

The Toxic Pollutant Health Research Laboratory (TPHRL) consists of 5,000 square feet of specialized and total containment laboratory space including 600 square feet of animal holding space equipped with metabolism cages. Individual exposure rooms have a variety of inhalation exposure systems including small chambers for rodent exposures, and nose-only exposure systems for rodents, rabbits, or guinea pigs. Specialized facilities have been constructed in this building for the study of environmental tobacco smoke. Also in the TPHRL are a multi-function sample chemistry laboratory where the various analytical functions are performed, a necropsy room for in-house postmortems, and a tissue processing and digest room where biological samples are processed for assay. Procedures involving concentrated forms of toxic materials are performed in the toxic materials preparation room and decontamination of equipment in the decontamination room. TPHRL has a ventilation/filtration system which prevents releases of radiolabeled or organic vapors into the environment. Supplied breathing air is available throughout the building for the protection of the researchers. The facility also has 1,500 square feet of general office and non-containment support areas, and 3,850 square feet of mechanical support spaces. The inhalation facilities in TPHRL which provide exposure to environmental tobacco smoke are available to campus investigators on a recharge basis.

Service Facilities

Animal facilities consist of indoor facilities for rodents, fish, insects and birds. The small animal housing facility houses rodents in 11 individual rooms. Animal care support services include a survival surgery suite, a diagnostic radiology suite, an intensive care unit and an animal clinic, which meet AAALAC standards. The newest animal facility is a Seabird Room which allows for the holding of aquatic animals requiring a temperature and light controlled environment. This Seabird Room is unique, offering three freshwater pools to allow observation of diving and swimming behavior. Each pool has an independent sand filtration system as well as a net top enclosure so that birds can be isolated. There is an ante-chamber room that is equipped as a food preparation/storage area. A small work area is provided for personnel making behavioral observations from a window in the ante chamber. Future planned enhancements include remote video cameras to allow for observation of bird feeding and behavior. Some of the animal facilities are available for use by campus investigators on a recharge basis.

The engineering unit provides a whole body counting service for campus researchers as well as non-University research businesses on a recharge basis.

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