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Cirrus BioSystems

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Testimonials

Shelby, Program Support Supervisor

I had the privilege of viewing a piece of equipment during its development. This is the SPF Misting Station. As a supervisor for a 27-rodent room facility, I can testify to the need for such a piece of equipment. The need to disinfect the cages and actually other smaller pieces of equipment we use with Clidox is one very important step which has helped us in decreasing the disease outbreaks. (K-wing facility has been disease free for over 4 years.)

There are several reasons that would justify the need for every room to have one. All rooms are always being used simultaneously. We try very hard to not move items from one room to another without going through a thorough cleaning, so sharing one would really not be practical at all.

Benefits in my opinion of using this machine versus the current spray bottles are: More thorough coverage of disinfectant. Less repetitive motion for employees, which causes injury and loss of work time.

Tena, Executive Assistant to the Director

Thank you for taking the time to show me the SPF Misting Station. I think this is a really great idea that in my opinion will revolutionize the current method of maintaining an SPF colony. The SPF Misting Station is appealing in many ways, but there seem to be four obvious benefits all stemming from ease of use:

Since the handler is able to use two hands to hold the cage and insert it into the Misting Station it is much safer for the animals (less chance of dropping a cage).

It's more likely that complete coverage with a disinfectant will be achieved since it's an automated system with strategically aimed misting nozzles.

Although I'm not an occupational health specialist it seems to me that use of the SPF Misting Station will reduce any potential for workplace injury associated with handling large volumes of cages single handedly, as well as make it less likely that handlers would develop a repetitive strain injury associated with repeatedly squeezing the trigger of the spray bottle.

From a researcher and husbandry perspective, the SPF Misting Station will greatly reduce the amount of time required to perform research related tasks and/or swap cages and cage accessories such as water bottles, saving time and money.

Again I think your product has a lot of potential and really appears to streamline the process of handling animals in an SPF environment. It removes a lot of potential for human error and makes the job of working with or maintaining an SPF colony much more manageable. I suspect that groups that are on the fence about working with an SPF colony may be moved to take the leap since your product makes the process just about as easy as working with conventional animals.

Ron, Program Support Supervisor II

Each of our animal rooms has a minimum of two hoods that will more than likely be occupied throughout most of any given day.  Because of the high usage of our hoods, we would definitely benefit from having an SPF Misting Station for each of the hoods in our rooms. Having one misting station would be almost useless because of the high volume of cages that get used on a daily basis. We have only just recently opened our facility, and already we have over 3,000 cages, with another 1,000 slated to come in next week. On a daily basis, we change a minimum of 500 cages, and this doesn't include the amount of cages that are used by the investigators. It would greatly benefit our facility in both time and money if we were to invest in the SPF Misting Stations for each room.

Steve, Program Support Supervisor II

The SPF Misting Station is very good product to have in the animal room. It saves time, fully disinfects and is easy to use.  It also decreases the risk of contamination in the animal room.

Most of the animal rooms at HRT facility are big and there are two hoods in a room. It is better to have one SPF Misting Station right next to the hood. Each animal tech changes ~ 200 mouse cages per day. 

Pam, Facilities Director, Comparative Medicine

We have been using your disinfectant spraying unit in our Harborview Research and Training Facility at the University of Washington and our animal technicians think it is great!

We have interest in this unit because the coverage of disinfectant is more uniform than hand spraying, it is more efficient and time saving as well as the fact that it eliminates the ergonomic issues of hand spraying each and every cage before it is changed.

Denny, Professor and Chair

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review the plans for you proposed cage disinfection device. As you are well aware in any animal facility two of our main concerns are labor costs (70-80% of our cost) and disease outbreaks (which can be financially devastating to investigators). Your device could potentially impact both in that it would make it easier and faster to disinfect bulky cages. This would lead to reduced time, enhanced compliance and more complete disinfection. Related to this is the likelihood that use of this device could reduce ergonomic injuries due to handling of slippery cages and having to repeatedly use a spray bottle.

Melvin, Professor

I have never seen any such apparatus to mechanically accomplish the cage disinfection process for rodent animal cages. The spray bottle procedure is the standard process used throughout the world at the present time. I believe that the time savings alone make the idea worth pursuing. Safety from dropping cages, simultaneous disinfection of worker's gloves, and the possible conservation of disinfectant are also important. The UW certainly has one of the larger rodent colonies and so all institutions won't have as many rooms, but on the other hand, we have many rodent rooms with more than one change station. It is noteworthy that the main reason for adding additional change stations to animal rooms is that the time necessary for cage changing and research procedures is such that there are not enough hours to accomplish everything. Therefore, in addition to the labor saving advantage, it is possible that making the operation more efficient might mean that we would need less change stations. This could be a considerable savings for animal facilities.