On September 22, 2017, the New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research (NJABR) offered its 24th Annual IACUC Conference, – “the region’s premier training conference for Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee members, lab animal veterinarians, animal welfare compliance specialists and lab animal research team members.”
As described, the conference focused “focus on opportunities to improve laboratory animal welfare, while reducing regulatory burdens, cutting red tape and creating efficiencies within institutions.” Toward that end, presenters from NIH and USDA (Patricia Brown, VMD, MS, Director, NIH, OLAW and William S. Stokes, ACLAM, DACAW, BCES, FATS, Assistant Director, Animal Welfare Operations, USDA, APHIS, respectively) requested recommendations from the attendees to reduce unnecessary or redundant regulatory burdens to researchers.
Following morning presentations, discussed further below, the conference included the following workshop selections that attendees could attend:
AAALAC Perspectives on Occupational Health & Safety Programs
Presenter: Richard B. Huneke, DVM, Council Member Emeritus
Animal Care & Use Committee Scenarios: You Make the Call
Presenter: Pam Straeter, RLATG, Asst. Director, Research Integrity and Assurance, Princeton University
Legal Update: USDA, Animals and the Law
Presenter: Nancy Halpern, DVM, Esq., Attorney, Fox Rothschild
New IACUC Member – Double Session
Presenter: Amy Salem, PhD, Associate Director of Operations and Training for Animal Welfare, Merck
Ask the Regulators
Presenters:
Patricia Brown, VMD, MS, Director, Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare
Tonya Hadjis, DVM, Supervisory Animal Care Specialist, Northeast Area, USDA, APHIS, Animal Care
John F. Lopinto, DVM, Veterinary Medical Officer, USDA, APHIS, Animal Care
Ashley C. McIntosh, DVM, Veterinary Medical Officer, USDA, APHIS
Animal Reproducibility & Relatability of Animal Research to Human Research
Panelists:
Damir Hamamdzic, DVM, PhD, Research and Regulatory Affairs, Post-Approval Monitoring Compliance Administrator, Rutgers University
Sarah E. Robertson, PhD, Director, Sponsored Projects and Research, University of the Sciences
Laszlo Szabo, Esq., Director, Research and Regulatory Affairs, Rutgers University
Andrew Gow, Ph.D., Professor and IACUC Chair, Rutgers University
Elizabeth Dodemaide, BVSc, MA, MANZCVS, Director Comparative Medicine Resources, Rutgers University
Gregory Reinhard, DVM, Director, Animal Welfare, University of Pennsylvania
Strategies to Enhance Animal Welfare Compliance Monitoring
Presenters:
Pharmaceutical: Lisa Stanislawczyk, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CRO: Mary Ann Jacobs, Envigo
Academic: Greg Reinhard, MBA, DVM, University of Pennsylvania, The Role of the Statistician in Study Design, IACUC Protocol Preparation Data Analysis
Presenter: Alfred Barron, Associate Director, Nonclinical Statistics/TMEDS, Janssen Research & Development
The keynote speaker, Jim Welch, Executive Director of the Elizabeth R. Griffin Research Foundation, presented a phenomenal motivational talk about “the importance of safe work practices, biosecurity, and collaboration among organizations and institutions seeking to advance scientific discovery.” It does not sound like a topic that would lend itself to a motivational talk, anyone looking for a keynote should consider Jim.
Overall, it was another great conference.
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