NAME Animal Facility and Experimental Operations
The Animal Facility and Experimental Operations section has over 700 m2 of useful surface area designed for research and teaching. It has three work areas: a barrier area, an experimental operations area and a stabling area. In those areas, the groups of animals are kept in conditions of high biological safety, with strictly controlled health and environmental parameters. The facility provides its users with technical advice regarding the test animals and their environment, and making sure existing legislation and regulations on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes are met.
FIELDS OF APPLICATION
Additive manufacturing
Biomedical consumables
Digital health
Electromedical devices
In-Vitro diagnostics
Laboratory equipment
Medical Image
Orthopedic and rehabilitation Technology
MOST OUTSTANDING EQUIPMENT AND COMPONENTS
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Barrier area for rodents (P2)
It has three rooms with positive pressure and one room with negative pressure for procedures with infectious material. It is equipped with two Biosafety hoods and has a maximum capacity of 576 cages on ventilated racks. All the rooms have an inhalation anaesthesia unit and a fully-equipped procedures table.
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Experimental operating room for medium (rabbit) and large animals (pig)
The room has two anaesthesia tables, two high-resolution laparoscopy towers, a scopic and graphic X-ray arch, and two surgical microscopes. This is the area in which training is carried out in the different services offered at the Donostia University Hospital, and where surgical research projects are carried out on medium-sized and large animals.
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Procedures and operating room for rodents
This area is equipped with seven surgical microscopes, an optical microscope, a safety hood for chemical reactive use, a refrigerated centrifuge and an inhalation anaesthesia tower connected to all work stations. This area also houses a behaviour room equipped with rotameters, treadmill, Grip Strength and compulsive behaviour testing equipment.
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Stabling area
This area houses mice, rats, rabbits and pigs in different rooms. It is equipped with two quarantine rooms with an SAS pass-through facility in each. It also has a multi-mode room for short-term procedures using a high number of animals, with a capacity for 60 rat cages and 144 mice cages. This area is also equipped with a work table fitted with precision scales and inhalation anaesthesia equipment. The maximum capacity in this area is for 180 rat cages on ventilated racks and 504 mice cages on ventilated racks. The maximum housing capacity for rabbits would be 36 males and 72 females. In the case of pigs, it would be 16 animals.
SERVICES OFFERED BY THE ASSET
Animal experimentation ethics committee
Safeguard the animals’ well-being and to ensure the experiments’ design is in line with existing regulations, collaborating with the researchers in the analysis of the projects’ ethical implications, and issuing reports wherever necessary.
Basic Animal Facility Services
Animal cleaning, sterilization and maintenance
Preclinical evaluation of new molecules or targets and medical devices
Evaluation of drugs, molecular targets, medical devices, etc., in an animal model (Drosophila melanogaster, rodent, rat, rabbit or pig)
R+D+i Projects and procedures advice
Regulatory and methodological advice
Training and Teaching in research with animal models
Training and Teaching in research with animal models, in experimental surgery and in new medical devices. Continuous learning courses
ENTITY MANAGING THE ASSET
Contact person:
IIS Biodonostia
amaia.delvillar@biodonostia.org