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Rutgers Animal Care Newsletter - New Brunswick | January 2020
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We are very excited to introduce Animal Care's first newsletter as a way of communicating and disseminating important departmental information to our research community. You'll find new and current faculty highlights with their animal model and research focus. We will feature our core facilities, what they have to offer, provide updates on IACUC policies, upcoming events/training, and veterinary and husbandry happenings.
If you would like to contribute to this newsletter or have feedback, please reach out to us at:
ruac@ored.rutgers.edu.
Dr. Jeetendra Eswaraka
Associate Vice President
Rutgers University Animal Care
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| Finance and Administration Update |
Change in Per Diem charges
New rat per diem charges go into effect February 01, 2020. The revised rate takes into account the type of caging and the cost of labor associated with it. For further details please refer to '2020 Rat Per Diem' memo available on
Finance and Administration section of Animal care website.
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The eIACUC system will be upgraded in February 2020. One of the main goals is to enhance the PI and research team experience.
New features include:
- A left-sided navigation menu to view all protocol sections at once.
- No more pop-up windows. These will be replaced with slide-in windows which expand and collapse within the browser. This will eliminate work lost due to unsaved or hidden pop-up windows.
- Reviewer notes will be located within the protocol page, next to the question/concern.
- The navigation menu will also depict the sections with reviewer notes, including the number of reviewer notes. All reviewer notes will be threaded discussions, in the event there are follow-up questions/concerns.
- Printing capabilities will be updated.
Additional communications will be provided closer to the upgrade.
Kelly Albanese, Training and Compliance Administrator
IACUC Office
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(L-R) Dr. Bishr Omary and Lab Members Dhiman Maitra, Raymond Kwan and Ning Kuo |
Dr. Bishr Omary
Henry Rutgers Professor of Biomedical Sciences
Professor,
Department of Medicine;
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research
Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences
The Omary Lab moved from the University of Michigan Medical School to Rutgers in August 2019. Located at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, the lab includes Bishr Omary and lab members Ning Kuo, Raymond Kwan, and Dhiman Maitra. "Our lab is grateful to all the support and warm welcome we have received from colleagues at CABM. Everyone in the lab loves the family atmosphere," Omary stated. Over the last three decades, the focus of the Omary Lab has been to elucidate the regulation, function and disease association of the keratin and lamin intermediate filament proteins in digestive organs. Keratins form aggregate inclusions in the liver, known as Mallory-Denk bodies, in the context of several hepatic disorders. Another focus of the Omary Lab is studying hepatic porphryrias that involve porphyrin accumulation that leads to protein aggregation and pointing to the unique role of porphyrin-induced protein aggregation as a causative factor in porphyria-associated tissue damage. Currently the porphyria-related work involved elucidating the biochemical mechanism of porphyrin-protein interaction that leads to porphyrin-mediated protein aggregation, identifying possible genetic modifiers which exacerbate or ameliorate porphyria symptoms, and identifying small molecules which potentially could be used as a therapeutic.
Their lab uses a combination of biochemical, biophysical, cell biological, physiologic and experimental techniques and models. This includes genetic mouse models that lack or express mutants of keratin, lamin and porphyrin biosynthesis enzymes. They have also developed an inducible porphyria zebrafish models to study the  pathogenesis of porphyria and to screen for compounds that may have therapeutic potential. Bishr, Dhiman, Ning and Raymond have already settled and are looking forward to three additional lab members who will be joining the lab during 2020. The only adjustment left is getting used to not being able to pump gasoline into their cars on their own!
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Rutgers Policy on Rodent Cage Density
All researchers using laboratory rodents at Rutgers University must comply with the Rutgers University IACUC Policy Handbook which can be found on
eIACUC
under policies.
Cage overcrowding represents a significant animal welfare concern and is a violation of federal and institutional policy on the humane care of animals, as well as the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Cage density should be monitored and managed regularly to ensure the well-being of all occupants. Any exceptions to this policy require prior IACUC approval.
Per the Rutgers IACUC Policy Handbook (available on eIACUC under policies)
, Document#1, researchers have 72 hours from the date of overcrowding identification (placement of notification card on cages) to correct this situation
including weekends and holidays. After 72 hours, if the cages remain overcrowded, CMR staff will separate/wean the animals and a service fee will be applied to the researcher's per diem account. Severely overcrowded cages of 15 or more animals per cage must be separated within 24 hours of notification in the interest of animal welfare.
CMR veterinary staff is tracking the frequency of overcrowding notifications sent to each research group.
CMR Clinical Veterinarian Dr. Jibing Yang is available to provide onsite training on overcrowding issues and breeding management practices. Please feel free to
contact Dr. Yang or other veterinarians to schedule a lab training session to improve the management of your rodent colonies and avoid unnecessary non-compliant incidences. Please note that failure to comply with IACUC Policy will result in mandatory lab retraining on breeding management practices.
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What Happened to the Nestlets?
CMR is switching over to the use of Enviropaks as standard enrichment. They are pre-assembled pouches made of a combination of Nest-paks and Enviro Dri which is made from FDA-approved crinkle paper for mice to build nests. Unlike traditional nestlets and cotton squares, the Enviropak products are dust-free, virtually eliminating ocular irritation, respiratory issues, and limb entanglement, improving animal welfare and thermoregulation. The Enviropaks are available in natural or white grade, and can be irradiated or autoclaved upon request.
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The mission of the IVRS is to provide centralized high quality, cost-effective research services to both academic and industry clients. Rutgers has a wealth of experience, capabilities and models that are routinely used to answer critical in vivo research questions. We provide a comprehensive program of animal care including consultation, experimental design, protocol preparation, a d
uly constituted animal care and use committee, occupational health and laboratory safety and full-time veterinary care.
Our team is highly experienced and dedicated to humane animal research. To read more about in vivo research services offered, consultation, onsite training workshops and available equipment, please visit
Research Services
on Animal Care website.
Research Services staff includes Dr. Shoreh Miller, Director of IVRS, and Laboratory Researchers, Jiadong Li and Raymond Rosa.
IVRS office: 848.445.7333
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| (L-R) Raymond L. Rosa, Laboratory Researcher; Dr. Shoreh Miller, Director of In Vivo Research Services; and Jiadong Li, Laboratory Researcher |
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The Genome Editing Shared Resource of Rutgers-CINJ (GESR) is a state-of-the-art university core facility that offers services related to the creation and preservation of mouse models for all of the Rutgers research community and Princeton University.
GESR utilizes the latest in genome editing technologies, particularly CRISPR-Cas9, to make precision genetically modified animals tailored to the needs of our investigators. With the CRISPR-Cas9 system, most genetic modifications can be made directly in the mouse embryo, which typically reduces the total cost and length of time to generate the model by six to nine months. Since its inception in 2016, GESR has successfully generated well over 100 mouse models using CRISPR technology. Visit the
GESR website for further details on
CRISPR-Cas9 system.
As the science progresses, the GESR will bring additional methods online to enhance gene editing and to move beyond just simple gene editing towards being able to manipulate the expression of genes in vivo.
In addition to gene editing, GESR offers traditional services such as DNA/BAC microinjection to make transgenic mouse lines. Embryonic Stem (ES) cell clones generated by the facility or purchased ready-made from ES cell clone repositories can be injected into blastocysts to generate chimeric mice which are then bred to achieve germline transmission. Moreover, the GESR can assist investigators in banking their lines by either sperm or embryo cryopreservation. Both services allow an investigator to send banked vials to collaborators rather than live mice and help protect against the loss of valuable lines and research time due to disease outbreak, environmental catastrophe, disruption of breeding and genetic drift.
GESR also utilizes in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo rederivation to facilitate import of lines from external sources or from rooms of lower health status into clean facilities. IVF may also be used to quickly expand colonies to produce large, age-matched cohorts for research studies.
The GESR is comprised of its Managing Director, Dr. Peter Romanienko, its Scientific Director, Dr. Ghassan Yehia and three microinjection specialists, Zhan Lu, Jian Pan and Xuening Hong. GESR has hired a new FTE dedicated to cell line gene editing, which will make a significant impact as the service is implemented in January 2020.
The GESR production suite and animal colonies are within the barrier and maintained at the highest level of health status to be able to provide specific-pathogen free (SPF) animals to the entire research community.
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(L-R) Dr. Ghassan Yehia, Scientific Director; Microinjection Specialist, Zhan Lu; Microinjection Specialist, Jian Pan; Microinjection Specialist, Xuening Hong; and Dr. Peter Romanienko, Managing Director. |
For questions regarding GESR,
please contact:
Peter J. Romanienko, PhD
Managing Director
Office: 732.235.5978
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Please Welcome...
Dr. Jibing Yang, Clinical Veterinarian
Dr. Yang recently completed his residency training in Lab Animal Medicine from the University of Michigan and joined CMR in August. He has over 10 years of experience in working with diverse species of animals. His research interest is to understand the role of alveolar epithelial cell injury in promoting Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) in rodent models. Dr. Yang received his MS from Virginia Tech and a PhD in Immunology from North Carolina State University. Dr. Yang's office is located in the Child Health Institute, Room 276; he can be re
ached at
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