CCSG Animal Facility

The Animal Facility Shared Resource facilitates research through humane and efficient management of animal populations. The vivarium operates as a modified barrier facility and is equipped with quarantine and a procedure room, holding rooms with biosafety cabinets, an imaging/holding room equipped with a small animal imaging and radiotherapy suite that contains a PerkinElmer IVIS SpectrumCT imaging system, SonoVol Vega ultrasound system, IVIS SpectrumCT, and additional support areas.

The Facility has rack space for more than 6,000 sterile, disposable, and individually ventilated mouse cages. Space for housing limited numbers of small animal species other than mice is also available upon request. Wistar’s Animal Care and Use Program, overseen by The Wistar Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), is fully accredited by AAALAC International since 1998, has an assurance on file with the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare at the NIH, and is a registered USDA research institution.

Through our collaboration with the Humanized Models of Disease Facility, Wistar Investigators have access to PDX and humanized mouse models for their research.

• Laboratory animal medicine and husbandry
• NSG colony maintenance and breeding
• Animal procurement
• Animal health surveillance
• Veterinary care and pharmacy
• Veterinary Technician Services
• Quarantine housing
• Technical support and training
• Mouse pathology
• Breeding consultations
• Transgenic Services in collaboration with Fox Chase Cancer Center
• Humanized and Patient-derived Xenograft (PDX) mouse models

VETERINARY PATHOLOGY

Peter Vogel, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACVP, a board-certified, distinguished veterinary pathologist and expert in mouse histopathology and embryology, provides consultation and scientific collaboration. Services include project consultation, histology slide evaluation and report preparation, and image development. Mouse pathology services are free for Wistar Cancer Center members. To request services, email Dr. Vogel at apetervogel@yahoo.com. Provide a detailed summary of your experimental protocol, key experimental questions, and material to be provided.

TRANSGENIC SERVICES

Wistar maintains an inter-institutional agreement with Fox Chase Cancer Center to generate transgenic and genetically modified mice utilizing services and expertise of both Fox Chase Transgenic Mouse Facility Staff and Wistar Animal Facility staff.

• Ventilated, sterile, disposable caging system
• Common use anesthesia and CO2 machines
• In vivo imaging suite for small animal imaging equipped with a Revitty IVIS Spectrum DT imaging System
• SonoVol Vega ultrasound system
• Small Animal Radiation Research Platform (SARRP)
• Hydrogen peroxide decontamination chamber
• Isolation cubicles
• Procedure room
• Small Animal Radiation Research Platform (SARRP)

This facility is supported in part by a Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center.