Prima Nexus sponsored two hands-on laboratory rodent workshops at Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2016

From the Prima Nexus archive: a look back at May to October 2016.

SERDANG, 25 October 2016: Prima Nexus sponsored the Workshop on the Care & Use of Rodents in Research, held on 25 and 26 October 2016 at the Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), in Serdang, and organised by the university's Unit of Comparative Medicine and Technology (COMeT) and its Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC UPM). Earlier in the year, Prima Nexus had also sponsored NIDSAW 2016, a two-day UPM workshop on handling rodents in infectious disease research and on gene expression studies.

NIDSAW 2016: rodents and gene expression

NIDSAW (National Infectious Disease Seminar and Workshop) 2016 was organised by the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UPM, on 31 May and 1 June 2016, with places limited to 50. On the first day, Assoc. Prof. Dr Abdul Rahim Mutalib lectured on animal ethics and infectious diseases in animal studies, and Prof. Dr Abdul Rahman Omar spoke on the UPM IBC requirements for studies that involve infectious agents. In the practical sessions, each participant worked with their own rodent, covering handling, injection sites, blood and urine collection, organ collection and preservation, and the management and disposal of infected mice and rats. The second day turned to gene expression, with hands-on sessions on real-time PCR and microarray analysis.

Care and use of rodents, with COMeT and IACUC UPM

The October workshop ran in the Tongkat Ali Room, Level 4, Institute of Bioscience, and was open to participants from UPM and other institutions. Day one covered the legal and ethical rules for using animals in research, rodent anatomy and physiology, pain and anaesthesia management, and the IACUC UPM forms. Day two covered sample size and statistics, rodent strains and nomenclature, nutrition for laboratory rodents, and welfare and humane end points. Assoc. Prof Dr Goh Yong Meng and Assoc. Prof Dr Chen Hui Cheng gave the lectures, and each afternoon Dr Mohd Hafidz Mohd Izhar and COMeT staff led a demonstration and hands-on session in handling and blood sampling: in mice on the first day, and in rats on the second.

Prima Nexus's part

Prima Nexus was a sponsor of both workshops. More photos are on the event pages for NIDSAW 2016 and the October workshop. Researchers planning work with laboratory mice and rats can read how Prima Nexus supports these studies today on our animal studies page.