Mission Statement:

  LARC's mission is to:

• Provide quality care for all animals used at the University of California, San Francisco.
• Assist the faculty in their mission of quality research with respect to the use of laboratory animals.
• Act as a resource center for the faculty on all issues relating to laboratory animals.
• Assist the University to meet its goal of humane treatment of laboratory animals.

The Laboratory Animal Resource Center (LARC) of the University of California, San Francisco is administratively part of the Office of Research Services in the Research unit of the University

Charles River Mouse Parvovirus Outbreak

On December 13^th, 2012 Charles River Laboratories notified LARC that Mouse Parvovirus (MPV-2) was identified among mice at their Hollister Barrier Housing Facility room H42. The serotype is MPV2 and not the MPV1 serotype detected in CD-1 mice about 18 months ago in a different Hollister room. Over 70 shipments of C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice from the contaminated facility were imported into 19 UCSF barrier housing rooms.

Appropriate quarantine precautions have been put into place for rooms housing animals which originated from the infected room and intensive colony and sentinel monitoring is ongoing. LARC veterinarians continue to work closely with Charles River to obtain additional information regarding this situation. LARC will be providing regular updates to investigators as new details and testing results become available.

UCSF AAALAC Accreditation Site Visit

Every year, UCSF strives to live up to the highest standards for the humane care and use of animals in research. In pursuit of this, UCSF encourages site visits from the private, nonprofit organization known as the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC).  AAALAC accreditation is voluntary and involves a comprehensive review by AAALAC evaluators, who are animal care and use professionals and researchers from around the globe.

This extensive assessment evaluates the quality of all aspects of the UCSF animal care and use program, with a focus on the basic components of institutional policy, animal husbandry, veterinary care and the facilities where animals are housed and used. The on-site evaluation by an AAALAC team includes observations of virtually all animal housing and procedure areas as well as an extensive review of UCSF program reports and procedures.

Voluntary participation in AAALAC’s program demonstrates UCSF’s commitment to achieving excellence in animal care and use, validating the results of research, and complying with the local, state and federal laws that regulate animal research.

AAALAC’s next site visit to UCSF will occur in the Fall of 2012. We look forward to their visit and hope to continue to meet and exceed AAALAC’s standards for excellence in research, animal welfare, and animal care and use.

For further information about AAALAC International, please visit the AAALAC Website.

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Recent Departmental Publications:

LARC Per Diem Rate Changes:

LARC has a goal to provide excellent laboratory animal care while keeping our per diem prices as low as possible for the research laboratories of whom we provide care for. Figure 1 (see below) plots the LARC per diem rates from 1999-current in comparison to the national inflation rate changes using the consumer price index.  Many of LARC's price changes have occurred due to the change in inflation over those years.

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