The Last Word

Cleaning Mickey's mess

How do you clean house for 130,000 mice? Ask Oscar and Felix, who tidy up after rodents around the clock in the new Whitehead Biomedical Research Building.

This odd couple is part of the Institutional Cage Washing System developed by the Swedish Karolinska Research Institute and is the first of its type installed in the United States. It is "manned" by the robotic arms of Oscar, who disposes of soiled bedding in the plastic, shoebox-sized dirty cages, and Felix, who does the final wash and dry, with help from a series of conveyor belts and mechanical washers, similar to mini versions of an automated car wash. Every cage is cleaned every 10 days, but like many of the other conservation-minded features of the Whitehead Building, the robotic washing system will use less water, chemicals, and energy than other washers of its type.

"Keeping this many mice cages clean could be very labor intensive," says Charles Andrews, associate vice president for space planning and construction for the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. "It's also dangerous to humans because of allergies to feces and urine. The advantage of using robots is they don't get sick."



See Class 'A' Space for more about the new Whitehead Biomedical Research Building.

In this Issue


From the Director  /  Letters

Hazardous duty

Code blue

Dropping Pulaskis

Class 'A' space

Moving Forward  /  Noteworthy

On point: Very private matters

Cleaning Mickey's mess

 


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Web version by Jaime Henriquez.