DLAR Town Hall Spring 2010

Director, DLAR

Cage card changes Berg G20 Staff updates Animal Ordering (not Topaz protocol

software)Associate Director, Operations

Facility Projects UpdateAssociate Director, Operations

Animal Health Update Associate Director; Chief of Vet Services

The number of animals used by NYUSoM must be reported to various regulating bodies and must be within IACUC protocol limits

Currently, this number is determined by the number of animals orderedThe number of animals ordered is deducted

in Granite from the amount allowed in IACUC protocol.

This system does not “count” animals that are bred and weaned in-house.

Theoretically, someone could purchase 1 breeding pair, produce a hundred offspring used in experiments, and their animal use for the year would be 2.

Currently, PIs order “manual” cage cards for weaned animalsDon’t reference a number of animalsNo animals are recorded in Granite or

deducted from the IACUC protocol

Have PIs place a web animal order every time they need to wean animals

Unacceptable burden on both PIs and DLAR staff

Create “weaning” manual cards Run a report of all new weaning cards for

the month (by PI and protocol#) Deduct the number of animals from the

protocol based on an average number of animals per cage Average number = 3.5 mice per cage at

NYUSoM Cards will also be created for

“separation” that will not be deducted from protocol

System in place at Emory Univ. for years

Recognize that laboratory personnel training will be required to make sure people order the correct type of card (i.e. weaning vs separation).

Soon, we will implement the two new types of manual cards

Run reports and verify results without deducting from IACUC protocols until we’re certain system is working correctly

Awarded $9.3M from NIH to renovate Berg An additional 10% match from NY State

6 Specific Aims: Create approx 4000 cage mouse barrier on 5th floor

State of the art individually ventilated caging Create rodent neurobehavioral core on 8th floor Create additional large animal housing on 6th floor Create women’s locker room for staff on 6th floor Improve quality of animal housing on 4th floor Improve HVAC in cagewash area

Good News Increase the amount of available animal

housing space, including rodent barrier space

Increase the capacity for animal research at NYUMC

Bad NewsThere will be disruptions In order to renovate each floor, animals

must be movedAll moves will be communicated well in

advance

New Smilow Facility Supervisor joined DLAR in April. Smilow supervisor

New Operations Manager will join DLAR in June 1st. Operations manager