Comparative Medicine Shared Resource

PROJECT SUMMARY: COMPARATIVE MEDICINE SHARED RESOURCE The Comparative Medicine Shared Resource (CMSR) of the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium provides high quality support for preclinical cancer research to Consortium investigators. Under the direction of Gordon Roble, DVM, MBA, DACLAM, staff, including an additional 2.5 clinical and regulatory veterinarians and 1 veterinary pathologist, 2 staff scientists, 5 program managers, 12 veterinarian technicians/technical experts, and 27 husbandry personnel, provide expertise in laboratory animal medicine and science, animal-use regulations, facility management, and daily care and treatment to six species of animals currently housed at Fred Hutch (FH). CMSR maintains an AAALAC-accredited, USDA- registered, and PHS-assured animal-use program located in 40,844 sf, and provides care for approximately 42,000 animals daily, including mice, rats, fish, frogs, guinea pigs and hamsters. Researcher owned rodent housing is in two centralized barrier facilities. By centralizing services, CMSR provides exceptional husbandry to maintain microbiologic and environmental control of animal colonies. CMSR offers critical assets, including radioactive and infectious agent containment housing and flexible space for specialized research needs such as reverse light cycles or metabolic caging. Equipment support includes individually ventilated micro-isolator rodent cages, a full-service rodent cage wash and autoclaves, and surgery-ready procedure rooms for rodent users. CMSR is an invaluable resource enabling superior preclinical studies, starting with initial study consultation and planning to ensure optimal research start-up time. This includes development and review of institutional animal care and use committee protocols. A CMSR comparative pathologist provides diagnostic case review and rigorous analysis of tissue samples from Consortium studies. The new Translational Research Model Services (TRMS) arm of CMSR will incorporate the preclinical modeling shared resource (SR) team in the next renewal to deliver rodent technical, surgical, breeding, and scientific support for research staff, including genetically engineered and patient derived xenograft mouse models. CMSR offers extensive training opportunities for research staff in general and specialized procedures, animal handling, and regulatory requirements. CMSR space also accommodates the Consortium-supported Translational BioImaging Core SR, creating an environment for significant inter-SR collaboration. One hundred sixty-five research groups depend on CMSR for success in developing animal models of cancer and cancer-related disease states such as transplanted or induced liquid and solid tumors, cancer-related pathogens, graft- versus-host disease, and conditions and treatments related to radiation therapy. CMSR continues to expand the scope and volume of animal-related work, including the proposed buildout and management of a high containment research facility (BSL-3/ABSL-3) to be located at FH, allowing Consortium investigators to work with live virus for cellular and animal studies to enhance our ability to work on molecular virology related to malignancy and design vaccines against virally mediated diseases.