Whitehead Biomedical Research Building

The Whitehead Biomedical Research Building was opened in 2001 and is populated only by mouse and rat colonies. Mouse colonies were either populated from other facilities on campus, after completion of Emory’s quarantine program, or from approved vendors. All rats were either shipped from approved vendors or from other buildings via cesarean rederivation by the Veterinary Staff of the Division of Animal Resources. There is a dedicated husbandry staff for the Whitehead Building. All rodents are housed in microisolator cages on static racks, ventilated racks or automatic water racks and mouse cages are opened only in laminar air flow hoods. All cages are autoclaved and the water is acidified. The Whitehead Building is the largest rodent facility on campus and currently has 4 BSL1 rat rooms, 32 BSL1 mouse rooms, and 5 rooms that house mice under BSL2 and BSL3 conditions, as well as our in-house quarantine room. There are approximately 42,000 mice and 700 rats housed in this facility.

The health status of our rodent colonies is evaluated quarterly by serology and parasitology performed on sentinel animals. The serology samples are outsourced to commercial laboratories and the parasitology is run in house. In all mouse rooms up to 4 sentinel cages, containing two 4-6 week old CF1 mice, are placed on every rack and replaced quarterly. Each sentinel cage monitors 35-70 mouse cages. Three times a week, each pair of sentinel mice are placed directly into the soiled cage of a colony mouse immediately after it has been removed.  At the end of 3 months the sentinels are replaced and the exposed sentinels are held 6 weeks for seroconversion, and are then euthanized for health monitoring. All mouse colonies are tested for endo-parasites, ecto-parasites, and the following pathogens every quarter: MPV, Sendai, PVM, MHV, MVM, GDVII, Reo-3, M. pulmonis, EDIM, MCMV, MNV, Ectromelia, LCMV, K, Polyoma and Mouse Adenovirus.

In all rat rooms, a sentinel cage with two 6-8 week old Sprague Dawleys is placed on every rack and replaced yearly. Each sentinel cage monitors up to 56 rat cages. On ventilated racks, or where rats are housed in caging with filter tops, sentinel rats are placed directly into the soiled cage of a colony rat three times weekly. In areas where rats are kept in static cages without filter tops, the sentinel cage is kept on the bottom shelf of the rack, also without a filter top, but they are not exposed to dirty bedding from colony animals. All rat colonies are tested for endo-parasites and the following pathogens during each quarter: Sendai, PVM, SDAV, KRV, H-1, Reo-3, M .pulmonis, and RPV.

Emory University colonies are not regularly screened for, but are believed to be free of the following pathogens: Mouse thymic virus (MTV, MTLV), Mouse cytomegalyvirus (MCMV), Lactate dehydrogenase-elevating virus (LDEV), Bordetella bronchiseptica, CAR Bacillus, Hantavirus, Corynebacterium kutscheri, Streptobacillus moniliformis, Salmonella, Citrobacter rodentium, and pathogenic streptococci. Mice from Emory University are potentially colonized with the following organisms: Helicobacter hepaticus, H. muridarum, H. bilis, Pasteurella pneumotropica, Proteus spp, staphylococci, and fecal coliforms and enterococci. Effective 4/30/2007, all DAR-managed mouse colonies are now declared to have high level epizootic murine norovirus (MNV) and low level enzootic mouse parvovirus (MPV) infections.

While we have no reason to believe that there are other pathogens in this facility, we recommend that all shipments from Emory University be isolated from other rodent colonies until confirmatory health assessments can be done. Additional testing can be performed prior to shipment upon request of the receiving institution. Please direct any questions to the Animal Health Quality Assurance Manager in the Division of Animal Resources at 404-712-9902.