Experimental Animal Facility

07/12/2006

1. Location
The Experimental Animal Facility is connected via a corridor to the Biomedical Imaging Center-Laboratory Building located to the south of the Storage Ring Utility. There is no entrance on the first floor of the building.

2. Facilities and Equipment
The Experimental Animal Facility has the following equipment for caring, storing and treatment of laboratory animals. Conducting animal experiments requires observation of instructions given by the manager of each room.

Name	Applications/Objectives	Devices and Equipment
Mouse Room	Caring of mice, rats and guinea pigs	Mouse cage: 25 Rat cage: 48
Rabbit Room	Caring of rabbits	Rabbit cage: 15
Treatment Room	Animal experiment room	Draft chambers Stereoscopic microscopes
Gene Experiment Room	Genetic recombination experiment room	Autoclaves
Aquatic Animal Room	Feeding of frogs	Frog tanks: 2
Low Temperature Room	Used for low temperature work
Cell Culture Room	For cell culture * Use of this room requires submission of an Application for Using Cell Culture Room.	CO2 incubators, clean benches, inverted microscopes and autoclaves

3. Bringing-in of Laboratory Animals
In principle, the following animals only may be brought into the Experimental Animal Facility.

Mouse; rat; guinea pig; hamster (Must be specific pathogen-free animals (SPF animals))
Rabbit (Must be clean animals)

Use of other animal species in the Experimental Animal Facility requires consultation with the supervisor before submitting an application for an animal experimental plan.

Experimental Animal Superviosrs ;

Naoto Yagi, PhD.: Animal Experimentation Supervisor (e-mail: yagi@spring8.or.jp）
Keiji Umetani, PhD.: Deputy Animal Experimentation Supervisor (e-mail: umetani@spring8.or.jp)　
Hiroyuki Iwamoto, PhD.: Experimental Animal Facility Manager (e-mail: iwamoto@spring8.or.jp)

Bringing-in of laboratory animals into SPring-8 requires the following procedures.　

Delivery of laboratory animals by suppliers using a special vehicle without opening packages

(1)	A Delivery Notification must be submitted at least 1 week before the planned date of delivery.
	Failure to do so may result in animal deliveries being refused entry into SPring-8. ^{Make sure to instruct the delivery service to deliver animals to the Experiment Animal Facility, Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute.}
(2)	When laboratory animals are delivered, the person in charge of accepting them at SPring-8 will accept and care them till the date of experiments.

Bringing-in of laboratory animals from universities and laboratories where they have been cared for and maintained

(1)	A Delivery Notification must be submitted at least 1 week before the planned date of delivery.
	Failure to do so may result in animal deliveries being refused entry into SPring-8.
(2)	Submit an Acceptance Slip and ‘Documents on microbial monitoring or microbial control’, to confirm the animals have not been contaminated, to the person in charge of accepting them at SPring-8 of the day of delivery.
(3)	After acceptance, the animals must be delivered to the designated place in SPring-8.

Bringing-in of laboratory animals by the experiment staff into SPring-8 without opening packages after purchasing

(1)	A Delivery Notification must be submitted at least 1 week before the planned date of delivery.
	Failure to do so may result in animal deliveries being refused entry into SPring-8.
(2)	Submit an Acceptance Slip and ‘Delivery Slip for Laboratory Animals, etc.’ to the person in charge of accepting them at SPring-8 on the day of delivery. The Delivery Slip, etc. may be either the original or a duplicated copy.
(3)	After acceptance, the animals must be delivered to the designated place in SPring-8.。

4. Period of Animal Care
The Experimental Animal Facility is where laboratory animals are cared for on a temporary basis till they are used for experiments. The maximum period for animal care is 1 month.
In cases where the period must be extended due to unforeseen circumstances, please consult with the supervisor of SPring-8.

5. Use of Anesthesia

(1) Pentobarbitals (Nembutal)

Use of Nembutal stored in SPring-8 as anesthesia for laboratory animals. Nembutal is a psychotropic drug and bringing it into SPring-8 is legally prohibited. Use of this drug requires consultation with SPring-8 staff.

(2) Other Drugs

Anesthesia agents other than Nembutal are stored in the drug cabinet in the Treatment Room. The following precautions must be observed when using these drugs.

Always lock the drug cabinet.
After use, make sure to measure and record the weight of the bottles.

6. Carrying Animals from One Place to Another
When taking laboratory animals from the Animal Rooms to the Treatment Room or other places outside the place of animal care, make sure to put them in a special cage or a carrying box. The cage/box should be covered with cloth so that animals inside are not visible from the outside.
Make sure to replace the floor carpet with a new one whenever animals are brought into the Storage Ring Utility –Experimental Hall.

7. Disposal of Wastes
All animal carcasses and other wastes generated by experiments must be taken out of the facility to the organization the experiment staff belongs to, for appropriate disposal. In cases where this is not viable and practical, please consult the supervisor of SPring-8.

8. Cautions

(1)	Make sure to remove all consumables and experiment apparatus from the experiment area after completing experiments so as not to cause trouble and inconvenience for other users.
(2)	Lighting in the Animal Rooms is timer-controlled to switch ON/OFF automatically. To help users conduct experiments at night, a night lighting switch has been installed. Make sure to turn off the switch after leaving the rooms. Do not turn on the night lighting switch in the daytime. Do not try to change the presetting of the timer to use the lighting at night.
(3)	Read and observe the cautions displayed in each animal room and Treatment Room carefully.