Large Animal Comparative Biomechanics Facility

Large Animal Research Facility and Comparative Biomechanics Lab

The Ohio University Large Animal Research Facility and Comparative Biomechanics Lab is located just a few miles from the university’s Athens campus. This 4,000-square-foot building has two experiment rooms that house lab equipment, two surgery rooms, two staff support areas, an office, and three 10-foot by 10-foot stalls for pre- and post-operation animal housing. Fenced pastures and outdoor enclosure areas accommodate swine and pasture animals—alpacas, goats, horses and others as required by research.

Opened in 2009 and managed by Ohio University’s Lab Animal Resources, the facility’s principal users are the Heritage College faculty and staff. While the facility can accommodate scientists investigating a wide variety of topics, the primary research taking place here focuses on biomechanics and coordination of feeding in vertebrates, projects that have clinical relevance for humans who lose sensory or motor function in or facial and jaw muscles. Equipment housed at the facility for this focus area includes electromyographic (EMG) instrumentation for recording muscle activation patterns, strain equipment for evaluating bone loading, and two fluoroscopes equipped with high-speed digital cameras for recording X-ray movies.