The facility has a total capacity for 3,212 mouse cages (5 mice/cage) and 72 rat cages (4 rats/cage). Animals are housed in 3 different health status conditions / areas (in accordance with the FELASA recommendations): Specific and Opportunistic Pathogen Free (SOPF) / Production area, Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) / Experimental area and Virus antibody-free (VAF) / Quarantine area, where all animals are kept in IVC (individually ventilated cages) systems with High Efficiency-Particulate Air (HEPA)-filters. Specific biosafety level 2 (BSL2) housing room also exist for infection studies.
In addition to normal husbandry routines, the Rodent Facility (RDF) staff supports specialized services such as colony management, rederivations of mouse lines, sperm and embryo cryopreservation, sample collections and surgical and experimental support to all research activities inside the animal facility.
The facility also participates in the educational process of researchers and staff members (caretakers and technicians) by advising and training on laboratory animal science and promoting practices that lead to better animal use and welfare. All users of the Rodent Facility must be certified by DGAV to be able to perform animal procedures. Otherwise, they may only use the facility accompanied by a senior laboratory member who already has a personal license issued by DGAV.
At iMM all research projects using animal models to be carried on have to be first approved by the Animal Welfare Body (ORBEA) of the Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM) , or ORBEA-iMM, and submitted to the DGAV for legal authorization. Only after this, researchers can start their projects using animals.
The main task of ORBEA-iMM is to conduct the ethical evaluation of projects, advising on animal welfare issues, on the practical application of the 3Rs principle and assessing if the research and procedures proposed are justified, comparing the potential benefits of the proposed experiments with the likely costs in terms of any possible animal suffering. ORBEA-iMM also follows the development and outcome of projects at institutional level and foster a culture of care.
The Animal Facility (Bioterium) at ULisboa’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine de Medicina is a unit prepared to house mainly mice, rats and rabbits for basic and applied research.
Access is allowed to qualified and experienced personnel only, in order to provide the best animal welfare standards possible and strictly following European guidelines (Directive 2010/63/UE), National laws (Decree Law 113/2013) and the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations guidelines.
The animals can be kept in low barrier (conventional) areas or in IVC (individually ventilated caging), depending on their immune status and the final objective of the experimental procedures. This Animal Facility is licensed by the General Directorate of Food and Veterinary (DGAV), which is the authority responsible for implementing the legislation for the protection of animals for scientific purposes in Portugal.