Facility Overview: The University of Illinois @ Chicago (UIC) Animal Care and
Use Program, which has had continual Association for the Assessment and
Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) accreditation since 1970,
consists of 137,000 sq. ft. of animal housing space. This includes a large
centralized animal facility (Biologic Resources Laboratory) containing 110,000
sq. ft. and 10 satellite facilities. The Animal Care and Use Program is overseen
by a staff of 5 board certified veterinarians (American College of Laboratory
Animal Medicine), six post-doctoral fellows in laboratory animal medicine, seven
veterinary technicians and 34 animal care technicians. Together the staff
provides support to 275 investigators and 550 research protocols and veterinary
and husbandry care to approximately 30,000 animals on a daily basis including
mice, rats, dogs, swine and nonhuman primates.
The BRL is a single-use building with three floors dedicated solely to the animal
care and use program. The first floor contains administrative offices, diagnostic
laboratory, necropsy, library, classroom, main feed and bedding storage, locker
rooms, 29 rodent housing rooms, and one aquatic room. The second floor
contains the nonhuman primate facility, which includes 14 animal housing rooms
and four procedure rooms. The basement contains the institution’s 26-room
mouse barrier facility, centralized large animal surgery and radiology service, 21
housing rooms for large animals and rabbits, eight investigator procedural rooms,
and the BSL-3 primate facility, which contains two animal housing rooms, three
procedural rooms and a sterilization room. The barrier facility houses the vast
majority of founder animals for the more than 400 genetically engineered mouse
strains maintained on campus.
The BRL functions as the heart of the UIC animal research program and serves
as the headquarters of several integral components of that program. Key
features and services provided by the BRL to support the entire campus include:
General Features
 A GLP-compliant clinical laboratory equipped with an Advia 120
hematology unit, an Olympus AU400 chemistry analyzer, and IL GEM
Premier 3000 blood gas analyzer that were used to complete
approximately 4300, 10,000, and 250 tests, respectively in 2009.
 Imaging facilities that include an IVIS Caliper Life Science
bioluminescence fluorescence imager, a Visual Sonics Vevo 770 Imaging
system for rodent echocardiography, a Neurophysics SPECT imager
capable of imaging nonhuman primate brains, and a bi-phase
angiocatheterization laboratory for large animals.
 Facilities to support work with infectious agents, select agents, and
chemical hazards, including volatile chemicals are available for all
common research species.
 A centralized necropsy area with two down-draft tables, five ventilated
work stations, fume hood, and photography stand to support tissue
collection and necropsies.
Rodents
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Rodents at UIC are specific pathogen free and maintained in sterile
microisolator caging and all cages are changed in a laminar work station
or biosafety cabinet.
A rodent quarantine and rederivation program, which has rederived over
650 lines of mice since 2005.
A rodent transgenic production service, which produces transgenic mice
for investigators from UIC and neighboring institutions.
Specialized housing such as suspended and metabolic cages available for
investigator use.
Fifty-three Illinois Cubicles within rodent housing rooms offer the ability to
isolate small groups of rodents from the colony for a variety of purposes
including placement on a reverse light cycle.
Four isolator units holding up to six mouse cages each are available for
the maintenance of gnotobiotic animals.
A Data Systems International rodent telemetry core with eight receivers
maintained by the department of cardiology.
Large Animal/Experimental Surgery
 A centralized large animal surgery and radiology service. Typical surgical
procedures include thoracotomy, laparotomy, implantation of telemetry
and access ports, craniotomy, surgical exposure of various peripheral
vessels for catheterization, and laparoscopic training.
 Five operating rooms, including one large room that can accommodate
two to four surgical tables and anesthetic machines for multiple surgical
cases, one room that contains five laparoscopic surgical stations for nonsurvival training, and one room that contains a DaVinci II robot for robotic
surgical training. A cardiopulmonary bypass unit and fluoroscope are
available for investigator use.
Nonhuman Primates
 Capacity to house up to 350 macaques and baboons
 A BSL-3 nonhuman primate facility with the capacity to hold up to 28
macaques. The facility contains equipment to perform bronchoscopic
infection, assessment, and collection of fluid samples.