FAQs for Animal Researchers

For the protection and security of our BU community and our research, many of the pages within the Office of Research and Animal Care and Use sites are Kerberos protected and will require you to login with your BU credentials.

For Kerberos password login issues, please contact the IS&T Service Desk at ithelp@bu.edu or 617-353-HELP (4357).

To get started with animal research at BU, you’ll need to get clearance, get trained and get access. Every step of this process is outlined for you on the Getting Started in Animal Care and Research page, including links to applications and trainings.

The Animal Science Center at Boston University is the central laboratory animal care and support resource for BU scientists on both the Medical Campus and Charles River Campus. It is your main source of support and information for every task involved in conducting and funding your research, from per diem billings to animal husbandry.

Boston University’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee oversees and routinely evaluates the activities conducted by and at BU that have a direct impact on the well-being of animals. It is your main resource for following and maintaining BU’s ethical treatment guidelines for research animals, and for ensuring compliance with laws governing research and animal welfare.

The Huron Research Suite is IACUC’s online management system, which automates IACUC protocol submission and review, as well as all other federally-mandated IACUC functions, including – but not limited to – facility inspections, program reviews, concern, and deficiency management.

To begin successful use of Huron, please consult the Huron Researcher’s Quick Reference Guide (download). Additional guides on specific common actions may also be found on the IACUC Huron Research Suite Reference Guides page.

Animal Operations is a system within the Huron Research Suite used to facilitate and manage animal research activities, including – but not limited to – protocols, orders, transfers, cage cards, and invoicing. It can be found in the third tab of your Huron dashboard.

For more information on ordering and obtaining animals, please see the “Obtaining Animals” section below.

In accordance with the University’s Personnel Training and Qualifications Policy, anyone working with animals at BU must complete trainings and other facility-specific requirements to ensure animals are well cared for at all times. All researchers must first complete several required orientations and trainings before joining an active protocol and gaining access to BU facilities.

Additional training may be required depending on the nature of your research and the specific animals involved. Regular training on animal care and use – including rodent handling, restraint, and various techniques – is offered by Vet Services. Please email vetservices@bu.edu with any questions or to enroll in an upcoming training. Enrollment prior to the training day is required to attend. Space is limited to three (3) participants per session.

Researchers who have completed all required trainings to work safely and responsibly with animals should refer to the Responsible Use of Animals section for an overview of the animal care and use guidelines, from proper care and humane treatment to environmental enrichment and safety.

If you have questions regarding animal health care and/or encounter any problems or issues with animals, please reach out to our staff for assistance.

For researchers on the Charles River Campus or on the Medical Campus, please contact Vet Services at Vetservices@bu.edu.

For researchers at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, please contact Animal Research Science Management at NEIDL-ARS-Management@bu.edu.

Special Care Requests (SCR) are animal activities other than standard animal husbandry. SCR include but are not limited to:

• Special food
• Special water
• Restricted feed
• Restricted water
• Special bedding
• Special cage changing

Special Care activities may be performed by ASC and/or research staff as directed on each SCR.

To submit a Special Care Request, complete the Special Care Request form (download), then follow submission instructions according to your campus (Charles River or Medical). Full information on the process for each campus, as well as explanations of the Cage Card instruction system, can be found on the Special Care Request information page.

An Animal Usage Report is the best option for monitoring animal usage and seeing your percentage used on all the protocols you own. You can find Animal Usage Reports in AOps. Detailed instructions for accessing this report are available in this document (download).

Before animals are obtained, an animal-use protocol must be submitted and approved by IACUC. All IACUC submissions must be made via the Huron Research Suite. Instructions for common actions – like submitting animal use protocols – may be found on the Huron reference guide page. Please contact IACUC@bu.edu with any questions or to request training.

Please note that only PIs may submit an IACUC protocol. More information on the IACUC submission process – including collaborative research protocols and activities exempt from IACUC review – can be found on the BU IACUC submission Process page.

After your protocol is approved, you may submit an administrative amendment with the IACUC to change the status of a lab member to “authorize to order.” This role will allow the person to both order animals and submit transfers.

To begin successful use of Huron, please consult the Huron Researcher’s Quick Reference Guide (download). Additional guides on specific common actions may also be found on the IACUC Huron Research Suite Reference Guides page.

After IACUC has approved your research protocol, you may submit an Animal Order Transaction (AOT) in AOps. For detailed information on how to navigate the AOT procedure in AOps, please reference this Animal Ordering Guide (download).

Make sure your order includes the following pieces of information:

1. IACUC approved protocol number
2. Housing location
3. Animal details:
   • Species and strain of animal
   • Animal stock number
   • Sex
   • Age and/or weight
   • Quantity to be ordered
   • Specific details of special instructions, including but not limited to:
     • Special housing/caging conditions
     • User name, if different from PI
     • Special diet requests

You can find more information on Animal Ordering Procedures – including deadlines, vendors, and pricing – on the ASC Ordering Animals page.

Boston University is committed to observing federal policies and regulations and AAALAC international standards and guidelines for the humane care and use of animals. BU therefore provides specific guidance for the appropriate breeding of rodents, especially rats and mice.

You can find the guidelines for both animals in the Animal Care & Use section of the ASC site, with specific guidance for rats here and specific guidance for mice here.

Additional resources and guidelines for rodent breeding on the Charles River and Medical Campuses can be found here on the ASC Breeding Animals page.

Boston University Mouse Assisted Reproductive Technology Core is part of the BU Animal Science Center (ASC) with a mandate not only to oversee the breeding of complex genetically-modified mice, but also to generate and preserve rare and valuable strains for later use. The MART core maintains a large repository of frozen sperm and embryo collections for the research community that can be revived anytime to generate live mice. MART core staff are experienced in collecting mouse sperm, recovery of unfertilized and fertilized eggs, conducting in-vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (ET).

Information on MART services – including pricing, nomenclature and training – is available here on the MART page. You can place and track MART orders within AOps.

If you have a breeding or model generation issue that does not fall under the listed services or you are not sure which services may best fit your goals, please reach out to MART directly:

• John Mkandawire, MART Core Services Specialist, jmmn@bu.edu
• Colleen Thurman, Director, Animal Science Center, cthurman@bu.edu

Yes. Due to availability of comparable commercial alternatives and low utilization, the MART Core will be closing at the end of 2025 (December 19, prior to intersession). ASC will still be able to assist in neonatal rederivations or Caesarean rederivations as needed to meet health status requirements for our different vivaria.

For future projects requiring cryopreservation, microinjection or IVF, alternative vendors are listed below. Taconic is currently offering a 35% discount on these services for academia, and JAX is offering 15-20%. For details on these services, please reach out to ASC (buasc@bu.edu) or directly to the vendors:

• Charles River
• Jackson Labs
• Taconic
• Brown University
• UMass Medical

To recover a portion of the money spent on animal care, the ASC charges per diem rates. Per diem rates are established by the University and published on an annual basis. Per diems will be charged for each day or fraction of a day that a cage or animal is within an ASC managed space. Per diems will not be pro-rated. Depending upon a researcher’s affiliation and sources of funding, different per diem rates may apply.

To see the current per diem animal housing rates, as well as an explanation of what is and is not included in these costs, please visit the ASC’s Per Diem Animal Housing Rates page.

To monitor your colonies or specific cages, use the All Active Cage Cards report in AOps. This report is an excellent resource for managing grant usage and active cages in our vivarium. ASC expects labs to manage their grants in the AOps system and encourages frequent monitoring.

To view the All Active Cage Cards report, visit the “Standard Reports” section under “Reports” in AOps.

Cage cards may become associated with another transfer that a PI initiated, even if its status is still in pre-submission. If you’re unable to locate a card, try the following approach to find it:

• Go to the Cage Card tab within AOps.
• Search within the All Cage Cards submenu.

• You may also perform the search by navigating to the “All Active Cage Cards” Standard Report within the Reports menu.

• Once you have found the list of cage cards, navigate to the “Transfer History” submenu.
• The “State” and “Transfer Date” columns will show if the cage card is tied to an open transfer.

To update your cage-funding source, submit a financial transfer request in AOps.

All procedure room bookings take place in AOps by completing the following steps:

1. Click on the Protocol Tab

 

2. From the Protocol tab, select the protocol for which you want to make a room reservation.

 

 

3. From the main screen of the protocol, click on the “create reservation” button on the left side of the page.

 

 

4. For the reservation type, click the drop-down menu, and choose “Facility.”

 

 

5. Choosing “facility” in the previous step will cause the “Facility to reserve” dropdown menu to appear. Click on the ellipsis to open up a list of rooms from which to choose.

 


• You can browse for rooms using the arrows at the bottom of the page.
   
  

 

• You can also search for rooms using “Filter by” feature. Select Filter by “Name” and the “%” sign to search for a number of a room (e.g., “%824” to find a room W824).
   
  

 

6. After selecting your room, scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the calendar. This calendar will show you dates the specific room you chose has already been reserved. If you click on the “week” button you can see details of those already-scheduled reservations. Select an open time slot for your new reservation.
7. Scroll back up the page to enter the date you found, a start time, an end time, and any reservation notes, then click the finish button.
8. You will return to the main screen of the reservation. Click the submit button. Note that reservations are not saved and submitted until you click this submit button.
9. The reservation will be sent to the ASC staff for approval. You will not receive a notification that the reservation has been approved. To check if your reservation has been approved, repeat steps 1 through 6 to see if your reservation appears on the calendar. Finding your reservation on the calendar means it has been approved.

Invoices can be viewed in AOps by following the steps below:

• Within AOps, click on the Billing tab.
• Within Billing, click on the Invoices tab.

• Within this tab, you will see a list of your invoices. To find a specific invoice, you can filter the list by end date, start date, state, protocol, PI or dollar amount.

• Click on the blue invoice number (INV#######) you wish to review. You are now in the PI Review work space.
• You can filter charges by using the Filter drop down. If there are more than 10 items on the invoice, you may change the number of items per page, up to 100 lines, on the bottom right side.
• You can also go to the Source Column hyperlink and it will take you to the details for the services on this invoice or the census in that room.
• To view and print your invoices, click on the blue text in the top right next to “Printer Version” (Invoice for ##-#### MM/DD/YYY – MM/DD/YYYY). This is an Excel spreadsheet with three tabs at the bottom for orders, per diems and services.
• To see special services itemization, within Billing, navigate to the “Service Requests” tab all the way to the right. Click on the blue Source Number on the right (SR#####). The Service Request will open.

• Within the Service Request, navigate to the History tab. Within the History tab, click Completed

• Within the Completed selection, click the Documents tab. The Special Services breakdown will be attached and available for download as an Excel spreadsheet.

To grant your Financial Administrator the ability to view invoices, you should submit an administrative IACUC amendment (download) via the Huron Research Suite. To expedite the process, we recommend submitting this amendment singularly and separately from any other modifications to your protocol you may plan to request.

Before an emergency occurs, familiarize yourself with BU’s Environmental Health & Safety website. A complete Emergency Response Flip chart is available for view on the site and as a printable here (download).

View Emergency Flip Chart

If you or another individual sustain an injury, chemical exposure, and/or biological exposure in a BU laboratory, first make sure to implement the first aid steps on which you have been trained and follow BU’s Emergency Instructions. These instructions include, but are not limited to:

• Calling Public Safety for emergency medical assistance at 617-353-2121 (CRC) and/or 617-358-4144 (BUMC).
• Reporting all lab-related injuries to the Research Occupational Health Program (ROHP):
  • Phone: 617-358-ROHP (7647)
  • Address: 72 E. Concord St., Evans 825
• Referring students to contact BU Student Health for any medical incidents NOT related to a chemical or biological exposure, at 617-353-3575.

Further instructions from BU’s ROHP are available here. Additional questions can be addressed to ROHP at rohp@bu.edu.