Mouse biologists at the University of California, Davis, and the Instituto di Biologia Cellulare, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, located at the "A. Buzzati-Traverso" Campus in Monterotondo, Rome, Italy, have established a new academic alliance, intended to strengthen biomedical research efforts worldwide. The "A. Buzzati-Traverso" Campus, opened in April 1999, is the site of the European Mouse Mutant Archive and the Mouse Biology Programme of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. The campus is coordinated by the Instituto di Biologia Cellulare. The new partnership, recently formalized by the signing of a memorandum of understanding, combines the talents and resources of both institutions and opens the door for new scientific and academic exchanges. "As the global demand for genetically altered mice expands, it's imperative that research institutions join forces to provide the mouse models necessary for studying human and animal disease," said Kent Lloyd, associate director of the UC Davis Mouse Biology Program. "Through this partnership, we're confident that we can further promote scientific exchange, increase mouse availability and strengthen graduate education and training." "It is very important that we are able to build up and expand an international network that gathers the most prominent institutions in this field," pointed out Professor Glauco Tocchini-Valentini, director of the Instituto di Biologia Cellulare. "This is also crucial in order to enhance the international character of the Italian biomedical research." The UC Davis Mouse Biology Program was established in 1997 to support and expand integrative-biology research by campus scientists using genetically altered mice. The program includes a laboratory that produces transgenic mice, which have new genes inserted into their genetic code, and knockout mice, which have certain genes inactivated for biomedical studies. UC Davis also was selected by the National Institutes of Health to establish one of four national repositories of genetically altered mice, known as the Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Center. The UC Davis Mouse Biology Program is home to the Murine Targeted Genomics Laboratory, which is a member of a National Institutes of Health consortium created to improve methods for storing and preserving mouse embryos and other reproductive material. The European Mouse Mutant Archive was designed to serve the entire European scientific community. Its center is located at the Monterotondo campus, and additional sites for stocking, preserving and distributing genetically customized mice located in England, France, Sweden, Germany and Portugal. The archive currently provides European researchers with mouse importation, housing, breeding, preservation, genotyping and diagnostic health-screening services. The European archive and UC Davis both have working agreements with The Jackson Laboratory, the primary provider of genetically altered mice, to distribute and preserve mouse strains and develop joint educational programs. The Jackson Laboratory currently maintains a facility at UC Davis for breeding, maintaining and distributing such research mice to researchers located in the West Coast of the United States and plans to build a new facility there that will accommodate 300,000 mice. The new agreement between UC Davis and the Monterotondo campus paves the way for the institutions to share and thus protect valuable mutant mouse strains; develop scientific exchanges of researchers; and establish mentorships for undergraduate, graduate and professional students. The two institutions also hope to plan collaborative research projects, coordinate computerized databases and imaging archives, develop a common network of scientific experts and create a joint quality-control assurance program.