Animal Barrier

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PROJECT SUMMARY – ANIMAL BARRIER SHARED RESOURCE The Animal Barrier Shared Resource (ABSR) provides specific pathogen-free (SPF) rodent housing and services that are critical to the research of Albert Einstein Cancer Center (AECC) members and the Center's programmatic activities. The ABSR is a component of the Institute of Animal Studies (IAS), Einstein's AAALAC accredited animal care & use program. The ABSR provides a broad spectrum of animal husbandry services including: veterinary care, comprehensive rodent quality assurance and quarantine programs. There is an intensive program of instruction for AECC members and their trainees prior to allowing access to the facilities to implement matings, genotype progeny, characterize mouse phenotypes, implant tumors and measure their growth, administer drugs, and obtain tissue biopsies. AECC investigators maintain breeding colonies of novel mouse strains bearing transgenes or targeted mutations relevant to cancer biology. Their research also involves complex breeding schemes to recombine specific alleles from different genetic loci into a limited set of genotypes on a single strain background. Many AECC investigators use immune deficient mice that tolerate human tumor xenografts as models to study tumorigenesis, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis, as well as to test anti-neoplastic therapies in human cancers. AECC members account for most of the total ABSR usage (cage care-days). The ABSR includes three SPF rodent housing facilities with an overall SPF mouse housing capacity of 25,000 cages. Personnel include three faculty Laboratory Animal Veterinarians (including the Director), an Operations Manager, three Facility Supervisors, four Veterinary Technicians, office staff, and approximately 42 Animal Caretakers.