The Avrum Gudelsky Veterinary Center, the University of Maryland home of the VMRCVM, lies in the heart of Maryland's thriving biotechnology community, and is near Maryland's major university research campuses and government laboratories, including the USDA Beltsville Agriculture Research Center, the National Institutes of Health, and Walter Reed Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. The Center contains 32,000 square feet of research and support laboratories, including animal care facilities. The 10,000 square-foot research laboratories are fully equipped with state-of-the-art facilities for molecular biology research, cell culture facilities, and a sophisticated electron microscope suite.
Approximately 18,000 square feet of space comprise a Biological Safety Level-3 facility and facilities for large and small animals, laboratory animals, and poultry. The poultry unit has 15 rooms for housing poultry, each equipped with 20 poultry isolators to contain any infectious pathogens and maintain a disease-free environment. The animal facility has a fully equipped necropsy room designed for postmortem analysis. The animal facility within the department is also home to the Aquatic Pathobiology Program. The program maintains over 3,000 sq. ft. of multiple flow-through and recirculating systems housing various freshwater and marine species. Eleven 150-gallon high-density polyethylene tanks, used for holding specially prepared or hauled water, are available for culture and testing of freshwater, marine and estuarine organisms with consistent water quality. In addition, there is are isolated experiment rooms, two toxicological bioassay suites, a dedicated necropsy room, a modern research laboratory, a machine and glass shop, a behavioral toxicology computer laboratory. This specialized facility provides an excellent environment to study aquatic organisms.
The Avrum Gudelsky Veterinary Center also houses the College Park diagnostic laboratory of the Maryland Department of Agriculture and the drug-testing laboratory of the Maryland Racing Commission. This co-location facilitates active collaboration in both applied and basic research on diseases of animals.
