Policies

Committee Approval
It is an Institutional requirement that every investigator demonstrate an updated approval by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) as well as the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) for both DNA and ES cell injection projects prior to using the Transgenic & Chimeric Animal Facility.

Scheduling
It is our policy that no injection date will be assigned to any DNA construct until it is submitted along with a completed service request form and the required documents attached.

Confidentiality
All information provided by the investigator concerning the research project are treated with the utmost confidentiality. No subject related material will be released to or shared with anyone without a written consent of the principal investigator.

Support Letter
For those investigators preparing to submit grant proposals to funding agencies, we will be happy to provide you with a letter stating our readiness to make transgenic and/or chimeric mice for your project.

Acknowledgments
We request that any scientific publications involving these transgenic animals acknowledge the service of the University of Pennsylvania Transgenic & Chimeric Mouse Facility in the Materials and Methods section.

NIH-Funded Users
Recently, NIH has issued a statement supporting and encouraging the timely sharing and distribution of mouse resources generated using NIH funds so that other researchers can benefit form these resources. http://www.nih.gov/science/models/mouse/sharing/index.html
The term "mouse resources" includes genetically modified mice, inbred mouse strains, mutagenesis protocols, as well as DNA vectors and murine embryonic stem cells used in the production of knockout mice. Genetically modified mice are mice in which mutations have been induced by chemicals, irradiation, and transgenesis (e.g., knockouts and injection of DNA into blastocysts), in addition to mice that have had spontaneously occurring mutations.

In addition, all of the transgenic mice generated may be deposited in the Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers (MMRRC) http://www.mmrrc.org system. MMRRC cryopreserves embryos and distributes the frozen embryos to biomedical researchers. The MMRRC is a collaborative effort, funded by grants from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), NIH.

We would like to remind our users that it's their responsibility to comply with that statement.