Newsletter IBF University of Heidelberg, 1st quarter 2018
General
Dear Users of the IBF,
we wish you a sucessful 2018:
Declaration according to laboratory animal notification decree
Each year declarations have to be made regarding animal experiments that have to provide animal numbers, purpose and other information according to the laboratory animal notification decree. Declarations have to be provided by all project leaders who were responsible for notifiable or subject to authorization animal experimentation in 2017 according to §7 Abs2 TschG or §4 Abs3 TschG for killing.
The data has to be provided in a special excel sheet. The sheet necessary for this is attached to this mail. The federal ministry for nutrition and agriculture has provided a general guideline fort he use of this spreadsheet. You can find it via this link:
Even if you have not used any animals for a project in 2017, we need the declaration. Please provide only project leader, file reference and animal count (as zero) in the sheet then. Please note that it might be necessary to use several lines for a project. This might be necessary if genetically modified and not modified animals were used in the project or the assessment of suffering showed different results in experimental groups.
The completed excel sheets should be sent to Vtm 2017. Please provide project leader and file reference in subject line. Deadline is February 28th, 2018. Files sent to other e-Mail accounts cannot be considered.
The university is required to provide a uniform statement regarding all animal experiments that were done to state officials. As this requires an additional amount of work after you have provided your data sheets I would like to ask you to provide everything until the deadline.
Experience from recent years showed that incorrect or incomplete tables resulted in an excessive amount of additional work. Please take care that all information is filled in correctly! Incorrect sheets cannot be considered and will be sent back uncommented. We cannot correct the spreadsheets for you.
In case of questions or if you need help with the spreadsheet please contact Ms. Kristianna Becker, PhD: Kristianna Becker
or
06221 54 8285
Biopsies
The tail biopsy is a notifiable animal experiment. The IBF therefore has a respective permit for all animals bred within the framework of its §11 permit that have to be genotyped. Work groups who have their own breeding permits for breeding of burdened animals are covered by that. Use of ear punch tissue for genotyping is not notifiable, if the ear punching is "done with the intent of identifying the animal and the produced tissue can be used for genotyping purposes".
Animals that are subjected to a tail biopsy have to be registered as experimental animals as per current legislation. This led to a masive increase in the number of experimental animals in the last two years at Heidelberg university. We would like to advise you therefore to generally use ear punch tissue for genotyping and tail tissue only in exceptional cases, due to the aforementioned and animal welfare reasons. Should you have general questions regarding the methodology (for example the solution volume for lysis has to be reduced), Ms. Wirth, PhD (E-Mail) and and Mr. Gensheimer (E-Mail) of the pharmacology department have agreed to be contact persons regarding that. As each workgroup normally have their own solutions for preparation and lysis and genotypings can be sensitive to alterations as well, specialized answers and support cannot be provided.
For those of you who start to work in the KEB epecially if this work contains procedures with anesthesized animals: we also offer an introductory course about the devices used in the KEB and the respective narcotic agents. If you are interested please talk with the KEB-Team or contact Mr. Frank Zimmermann.
Classical resolution for the new year.
IBF Universität Heidelberg · Im Neuenheimer Feld 347 · Heidelberg 69120
