Animal facility
The Animal Facility, with a capacity to produce up to 12,000 animals per month, occupies an area of 2,000m2 adjacent to the main building and consists of an area dedicated to the production of rats and mice, exclusively for animal experimentation. All animals are kept in racks with microisolators to ensure the SPF (Specific Pathogen Free) sanitary standard. Therefore, the NPDM animal facility is a structure that combines construction aspects, equipment, and operational methods aimed at stabilizing the environmental conditions of enclosed and restricted areas, and minimizing the probability of pathogens and other undesirable organisms contacting or infecting the animal colony, both in the production area and in the experimentation rooms.
Accreditation: After meeting all safety requirements, through its process standardization, infrastructure, and technical staff, it achieved certification from the National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovations (2021). Researchers now have permission to produce, import, maintain, and conduct research with Genetically Modified Animals of Risk Class 2. The new level of certification has a significant positive impact on research conducted at UFC, as it enables advances in experiments with moderate-risk microorganisms to professionals and the environment, causing infectious diseases. Furthermore, activities in the animal facility may involve transgenic animals, important for research involving gene manipulation. The facility has recently undergone accreditation by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International – AAALAC – which evaluates organizations that use animals in research, teaching, or testing. This accreditation benefits institutions and the animals under their care in various ways. And each time a new organization is accredited, it helps to raise the global standard of animal welfare in science. This effect elevates the standard of these two facilities to an international level, thus giving us greater credibility in our work, thereby demonstrating the level of maturity in its management.
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