Groundbreaking ceremony for JAX Ellsworth

Jackson Laboratories broke ground for a state-of-the-art vivarium at their new Ellsworth campus in Ellsworth, Maine. The 134,900 square-foot facility will help JAX pursue many of its long-term strategic business and research goals. The new location will gradually take over mouse production responsibilities, freeing up JAX's established Bar Harbor campus to expand its growing biomedical research and education programs. “Last year, The Jackson Laboratory provided mice and services to 23,527 research labs in 52 countries,” noted JAX executive vice president and COO Chuck Hewett. Maintaining and expanding JAX's mouse production and distribution capacity—which they hope will increase by a factor of 4 with the Ellsworth campus—while continuing to grow the laboratory's academic work in genetics and precision medicine will require a significant dedication of time and money by JAX, as well as support from state and federal bodies. U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, Congressman Bruce Poliquin and Ellsworth Mayer Robert Crosthwaite all pitched in for the groundbreaking ceremony.

Gaschen to chair WSAVA committee

Frédéric Gaschen, professor at the veterinary teaching hospital at Louisiana State University (LSU), is the new chair of the Congress Scientific Program for the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA). WSAVA has 96 members representing 158,000 veterinarians internationally, with the goal of advancing health and welfare of companion animals. As the new committee chair, Gaschen will be responsible for designing and organizing many of the conference programs that take place throughout the year. Upcoming conferences will be in Colombia, Denmark, Singapore and Canada. Gaschen previously served as chair for the annual Forum of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, and also currently serves on the committee for the North American Veterinary Community Conference. Originally from Switzerland, Gaschen has been at LSU for 10 years and specializes in gastroenterology and gastrointestinal motility.

2016 'CRACK IT' challenges

The NC3Rs recently announced its 2016 'CRACK IT' challenges. CRACK IT challenges, which were developed by the NC3Rs to spur applied research aimed at tackling industry-identified obstacles, provide milestone-based funding for researchers to innovate new 3Rs technology, with the ultimate goal that the technologies will be 'picked up' and commercialized to develop treatments for human disease. In addition to funding from the NC3Rs, in-kind contributions will be made by nine sponsors, including: Arthritis Research UK, GlaxoSmithKline, MRC Harwell, Roche, Bayer, Merck, Novartis, Syngenta and Dow Agrosciences. There are four Challenges for 2016: 1) Maximize, an in silico challenge to predict toxicity of chemical mixtures; 2) EASE, which seeks to improve in vitro methods of embryo culturing and manipulation for making genetically altered mice; 3) Retinal 3D, a challenge to establish a three-dimensional in vitro cell model of the retina; and 4) Osteo-chip, which seeks to develop an in vitro model of a human osteoarthritic joint for research and drug development.

UK Home Office 2015 animal stats

The UK's Home Office released its annual animal statistics showing the number of animal procedures carried out in Great Britain during 2015. The release of animal statistics is part of the UK's Animals Act of 1986, and covers all vertebrate species. Of the over 4 million animals used in procedures in 2015, the vast majority (73%) were mice, followed by fish (13%), rats (6%), and birds (3%). Similar to previous years' trends, dogs and primates combined accounted for less than 0.2% of the total number of animals used in procedures.

Careers update

Sue Stover was awarded the American Veterinary Medical Association's (AVMA) 2016 Lifetime Excellence in Research Award for her work in applied and clinical research of musculoskeletal injuries. “Throughout her distinguished career, Dr. Stover has played a pivotal role in improving our understanding of performance-related injuries in racing horses,” said Dr. Joe Kinnarney, AVMA president. “She is an accomplished researcher whose work has been recognized across the globe and has had far-reaching effects across the veterinary profession.” Stover is a professor of veterinary anatomy and director of the J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory at UC Davis.