The Animal House Facilities are a shared resource that provides services in laboratory animal experimentation and husbandry for all CNC, and other UC departments, researchers and companies. Its mission is to guarantee animal welfare and sanitary conditions consistent with the high standards required in research and teaching excellence.
At the present CNC runs two animal facilities, CNC_UC-BIOTECH Animal facility in Cantanhede and FMUC/CNC Animal Facility in Coimbra. The CNC_UC-BIOTECH Animal Facility has the capacity to house 1500 specific pathogen free (SPF) animals: mice and rats. It offers a level 2 biosafety area (ABSL2) for performing animal experiments associated with agents with moderate potential risk to humans and/or the environment. FMUC/CNC Animal Facility is a conventional type facility with capacity to house approximately 4000 animals, mice and rats. These facilities support mainly experimental projects related to neuroscience, immunology, cancer and metabolic diseases through a range of behavioral testing equipment, surgical rooms and specialized animal services and expertise, namely breeding and housing of wild type and transgenic/knockout strains, production of embryos and litters and technical support to animal experimentation procedures, including surgery.
CNC was one of the 19 national institutions that signed the Transparency Agreement on Animal Research in Portugal, promoted by the Portuguese Society of Laboratory Animal Science (SPCAL), in collaboration with the European Animal Research Association (EARA).
By signing the Transparency Agreement, the signatories agree to the following obligations:
- Place a statement regarding animal welfare on the Institution's website.
- Place a link to the Transparency Agreement.
- Provide information obtained to the media and the general public about the conditions under which research with animals is carried out and the results obtained.
- Develop initiatives that promote greater knowledge and understanding of society about the use of animals in scientific research.
- Reporting on progress and sharing experiences.
Keywords:
Animal house; Animal research; Animal welfare; ORBEA
Services / Technologies:
Design, execution and support of animal experimentation procedures
Production of mice and rats
Samples collection (blood, feces and tissue for genotyping)
Timmed embryos and litters production
Equipment Sterilization
Other services on request
Contact:
animalhouse@cnc.uc.pt
