The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) will be conducting its federally mandated semi-annual facility inspections during the next several weeks. During the inspections, IACUC members may request information and records related to your IACUC approved protocol and use of animals. Please arrange to have personnel available in your laboratory during the inspection period to answer questions and provide access to animal use records. For more information about the semi-annual facility inspections, please refer to the IACUC website at http://research.uci.edu/compliance/animalcare-use/research-policies-and-guidance/facility-inspections.html
To assist you with preparing for this inspection, the list below describes those areas to which the IACUC inspection teams will pay special attention:
- Expired drugs and medical materials must be discarded or appropriately labeled and segregated from non-expired material (see the campus policy for more information
http://research.uci.edu/compliance/animalcare-use/research-policies-and-guidance/drugs-in-animals.html )
- All laboratory staff involved with the use of live animals should know what is in the approved protocols – what procedures are performed, whether anesthetics or analgesics are used, etc. Everyone in the lab must know where to find a copy of the most recent approved protocol documents (hard-copy or electronic).
- Use of aseptic technique for survival surgeries, including proper sterilization of instruments (see the campus policy for aseptic rodent surgery, http://research.uci.edu/compliance/animalcare-use/research-policies-and-guidance/surgery-policy.html )
- Controlled drug logs, surgical/post-operative/recovery records, breeding records and daily husbandry logs for housing variances must be current and available for review.
- All personnel (including students) working within the laboratory must be enrolled in the EH & S Occupational Health Program by completing a Work Health History form on an annual basis. The form must be completed and resubmitted not less frequently than once per year, or when health status changes occur. For more information, please visit http://research.uci.edu/compliance/animalcare-use/training-education/occ-health-program.html
- Animal use space must be clean, orderly, and in satisfactory condition. Vivaria housing rooms and shared procedure spaces must not be used to store excess equipment or cages.
View the Spring 2015 IACUC Inspection Schedule”
If you have questions regarding these inspections, please contact the IACUC Administrative Office. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Please visit the IACUC website for more information about UCI’s animal care program