CORE--ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION

University Of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Animal Experimentation Facility (Bernard E. Weissman, Ph.D., Faculty Director) The Animal Experimentation Facility makes available a central facility staffed by one skilled individual to promote experimentation in laboratory animals for drug screening, tumorigenicity testing, and reagent production. The skill and quality control provided by a single trained individual improves the utility and reproducibility of studies. The facility also reduces the number of personnel entering the restricted animal quarters within the Division of Laboratory Animal Medicine. Finally, the facility provides support services for members with new mouse strains generated by the Animal Models Core. During the 1997-98 fiscal year, 11 investigators from eight different programs used the facility's services, all of whom were Cancer Center members with peer-reviewed funding. The facility provided 213 service hours. Facility use has increased, rising from an average of approximately 20 hours/month during its first year of operation to approximately 60 hours/month in the second half of 1998 and to 80 hours in the last month. As demand continues to grow, the Research Technician's effort, which has been 0.25 FTE, is increasing to 0.756 FTE by the beginning of the next funding period. Presently, four additional investigators have submitted transgenic and "knockout" mice, adding to the current members who already rely on these techniques for gene therapy studies, analyses of tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes, and drug development. At the current rate of expansion, the facility is likely to provide services for an additional 10 to 15 investigators leading to an average of at least 120 hours/month over the next five years.