Cellular/Molecular Basis of Development: Research Center

City College Of New York, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Soon after beginning our program, we converted the animal room that housed classroom animals into an animal care facility for research animals. We hired a veterinarian and three animal technicians, bought supplies and animals, all with RCMI funds. In 2007, the College, again with its commitment to our program, institutionalized our facility and constructed an eight room, 5,000 square foot vivarium, which is attached to the science building through a short hallway. The animal care facility operates under an Assurance with the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare and is registered with the United States Department of Agriculture and the New York State Department of Health. The facility consists of, 3,500 square feet for animal housing. There are two separate heating and cooling units (both have a main unit and a backup unit). There is an oil fueled emergency generator to protect against power loss. The facility uses Opti mice caging which uses the buildings exhaust system to ventilate the cages. This allows us to properly maintain our cages without the added noise or heat of traditional ventilated cages, making this a more environmentally friendly system. Our cage washer has a pass thru rack washer (from a dirty room to a clean room) as well as a pass thru autoclave. We use filtered and reverse osmosis-treated water for all animals. The facility is new and was designed to be able to house a variety of animals. We house mice, rats, rabbits and ferrets. There is a room for transgenic mice, available within this facility however, birds are maintained in an auxiliary facility on the 8th floor of the science building. The entire facility is monitored by Semen's monitoring system, which is will notify essential personnel in emergency situations. A manager, three technicians and a consulting veterinarian staff the facility. The veterinarian for the facility is Dr. Sulli Popilskis DVM, DACLAM, a Diplomat of the American Collage of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM), and is also a member of The City Collage Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. He is responsible for the Program of Veterinary Care (a USDA requirement) at CCNY. He is the former Associate Director of the Institute of Comparative Medicine at Columbia University. With his experience at Columbia University and his credentials, he is an expert on USDA, PHS and New York State regulations for the Housing and care of laboratory animals and the requirements to maintain an approved animal facility. He provides the IACUC committee and program manager with information on the reporting requirements for various species, reviews and approves all animal protocols and conducts at least two inspections of the facilities per year. He is also on call to advise researchers on techniques, anesthesia, and all other areas of animal care and research. He does regular serological testing to ensure the health of the colonies and necropsies on animals whose cause of death is unknown. In accordance with our USDA registration and PHS Assurance, he reviews our facilities program and prepared the Plan of Veterinary Care at CCNY. As the attending Veterinarian, he also attends to sick animals in the facility, assessing their health, treating them when applicable and assessing the potential ramifications to the specific colony. As the City collage of New York veterinarian of record, he meets with others involved in the planning, designing, and implementation of the renovation of the animal facility. We also have a backup veterinarian who is available when Dr. Popilskis is unavailable. Dr. Steven Brunnert D.V.M., DACLAM, DACVP. The facility manager, Harry Acosta is a Licensed Veterinary Technician, Certified LATG, and ILAM Certified. We currently have three caretakers, paid by the College and the RCMI is proposing to hire a forth in this proposal. There is a room for transgenic mice, available within this facility however, birds are maintained in an auxiliary facility on the 8th floor of the science building. Other birds are located on floors 7 and 13. It is important to re-state that there are only three technicians in the entire facility. As a result of building the new facility the number of animals rose quickly (4,500 mice, 362 rats, 300 finches, 52 chicks, 8 ferrets). This was unexpected and not a part of the College's new animal room budget. To aid in this transition and to relieve the overload of work, we propose to hire one additional animal technician in this proposal. This will ensure the success of the Animal Facility with respect to the College's appropriation of $6M to the construction of this facility. We propose to hire a person with experience working with mice, rats, rabbits and chickens. Although this individual will work with all of the animals listed above, his/her primary focus will be with birds. Birds are housed in our auxiliary facility, which requires much more attention than previously estimated. The person hired will be asked to provide general care and maintenance of laboratory animals under the standards and regulations set by the NIH and the Board of Health. They must have training in daily record keeping and monthly census tracking. This person should also have the educational background to indicate his/her ability to learn basic experimental procedures. In addition to animal care, this individual will be asked to provide technical assistance when necessary. These procedures include preparation procedures for surgery, basic surgical procedures, dissections, and experimental documentations. Finally, in addition to his work with the birds (Wallman) this animal caretaker will be asked to assist with breeding, surgery and genotyping of mice & rats. We believe that the addition of one more caretaker will aid in the successful application for AAALAC approval, to be submitted by December 2011. This individual will work with Drs. Pezzano, Ali, Wallman, Guyden, Spatz, Levitt, and Saleque.