ACLAM awards

The American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine recently held its Awards Dinner during its 2018 Forum at the end of April, with 4 honorees recognized at the event. Stephanie Murphy and Craig Franklin each received a Mentor Award for their efforts to train and mentor the next generation of laboratory animal veterinarians. Murphy is the director of the Division of Comparative Medicine in the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs and Franklin is a veterinary pathobiologist and director of the Comparative Medicine program at the University of Missouri’s College of Veterinary Medicine; he is also the director of Missouri’s Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Center. John Bacher, a veterinarian in the NIH’s Veterinary Medicine Branch, received the Nathan R. Brewer Career Achievement Award. And Susan Compton, a research scientist at Yale University, received an Honorary Membership given to non-veterinarians in recognition of their contributions to laboratory animal medicine

ACLAM Foundation grants

The ACLAM Foundation has awarded five grants for 2018. Sarah Hamer from Texas A&M University received $30,000 to study transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi, a protozoan parasite that causes Chagas disease, in nonhuman primate facilities. Alexandra Whittaker from the University of Adelaide in Australia received $29,867 to validate microRNAs as a new tool to assess laboratory animal welfare. Joseph Garner from Stanford University received $29,965 to study the effects of corncob bedding on male mouse aggression. Georgina Dobek from Tulane University received $26,803 to study how daytime blue-enriched LED lights can affect circadian regulation of physiology and metabolism in lab mice. And Debra Hickman from Indiana University received $17,822 and the 2018 Greg Boivin Memorial Award to study carbon monoxide as euthanasia alternative for rodents.

Ignition!

The Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) and the Institute of Translational Health Sciences at the University of Washington have awarded two Ignition Awards for 2018. The awards program supports pilot studies that use nonhuman primates for either translational research or to develop or enhance the use of the animals as research models. The first recipient is Andrew McGuire, a research scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. McGuire will use the Ignition funding to further study a proof-of-concept vaccine against Epstein-Barr virus, using rhesus macaques. The second recipient is WaNPRC postdoctoral fellow Megan O’Connor, who will study how simian immunodeficiency virus co-infection affects Zika virus pathogenesis in pigtail macaques.

UFAW Medal

Paul Flecknell, a professor of Laboratory Animal Science and the director of the Comparative Biology Centre at Newcastle University in the UK, has been awarded the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Welfare Science. Flecknell received his veterinary degree from Cambridge Veterinary School in 1976 and also holds a PhD from the University of London and a Diploma in Lab Animal Science from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. The medal was awarded in recognition of his contributions to improving anesthesia, analgesia, and pain assessments in laboratory animals over the course of his career.

New director at Sinclair

Sinclair Research, a preclinical contract research organization and research animal supplier based in Missouri, has announced a new director of toxicology and dermatology. Jeffrey Klein joins the company from EP Technologies in Akron, Ohio, where he directed preclinical research in transdermal technology. At Sinclair, he will be responsible for both the scientific direction and operational processes of the company’s toxicology and dermatology services.

KSU joins One Health Alliance

The College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University is the newest member of the Clinical and Translational Science Award One Health Alliance. The alliance, a group of veterinary schools and medical institutions, is supported by a National Institutes of Health Clinical Translational Science Award to advance One Health translational medicine and research for humans, animals, and the environment.

To fight multidrug-resistant infections

The NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded a 5-year, $5.5 million grant to Rutgers University and Cidara Therapeutics for continued research and development of the San Diego-based biotechnology company’s Cloudbreak antibody-drug conjugate platform. David Perlin at the Public Health Research Institute of New Jersey Medical School at Rutgers will lead the initial preclinical development activities of the platform, which is designed to identify novel immunotherapy agents with the potential to treat multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections.

New ARC in Newfoundland

Memorial University Newfoundland is updating its fifty year old animal research facility with a new $36 million Animal Resource Centre. The current facility, which houses rodents, minipigs, and woodchucks, is used by the school’s medical, pharmaceutical, and scientific faculty but needed to be updated to maintain its certification of Good Animal Practice from the Canadian Council on Animal Care. Construction began in September 2017 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

And a belated happy birthday…

…to Patty the capuchin monkey, who turned 35 on June 1. Patty was born at San Diego State University in 1983 and currently resides at an Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina. “It’s an unusual age,” CEO Greg Westergaard commented in a press release marking the event, “Patty is likely one of the oldest capuchins today in North America, she was born while I was an undergraduate psychology student at San Diego State University and I have known Patty her whole life. She is extremely sweet and very intelligent."