By Roger Segelken
A major consolidation and transformation of Cornell's animal-care program over the past two years has produced two results so far: the granting of full accreditation by the leading animal-care assessment organization as well as the improvement of humane and safe conditions for the thousands of animals used in teaching and research at Cornell and for the people who work with them, according to university administrators.
Life among the animals will get even better, administrators predict, as new policies are more fully implemented and new facilities come on line. The university has committed more than $90 million to refurbishing existing animal-care facilities across the campus and building new ones, including the proposed East Campus Research Facility.
In a March 2004 letter to Cornell Provost Biddy Martin, the president of the Council on Accreditation of AAALAC International (the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care) said, "... the criteria for maintaining full accreditation have been assured. The Council recognizes your efforts to achieve an exemplary animal care and use program and commends you and your staff for the very positive and proactive actions taken." The re-accreditation followed a weeklong inspection of all university facilities last July by AAALAC.
Cornell maintains a hugely diverse population of laboratory animals, ranging from fish, reptiles and amphibians to farm-production animals, such as cows and swine, and exotic species, such as naked mole rats. But the overwhelming number of animals are genetically modified mice.
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The AAALAC accreditation letter was addressed to officials with the most direct responsibility for animal care and use at Cornell: Michele M. Bailey, associate vice provost for research animal resources; Charles R. Fay, vice provost for research administration; and W. Ron Butler, professor of animal science and chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC); as well as to Provost Martin.
Kraig Adler, vice provost for life sciences and a professor of neurobiology and behavior, who uses laboratory animals in his own research, calls the changes "nothing short of a major transformation" of animal-care programs.
He credits the "splendid cooperation" of Cornell's deans, directors and faculty researchers for making the transformation possible, adding: "I think most everyone realized that Cornell really had no choice but to consolidate, standardize and modernize our animal-care programs. Just one serious violation of protocol would be enough to shut down all our animal-related research, and no one wants that.
"It took a real change of culture," Adler said. "I can't give the faculty-researchers enough credit for that. But the results, in terms of better-quality research and better lives for the animals, will be worth all the effort. As one of the nation's largest academic users of animals and probably the university with the most diverse collection -- we knew we had to get it right."
Before Bailey's appointment, Adler recalled, laboratory animals at Cornell were widely perceived "as a veterinary college responsibility," even though animals also are used throughout campus (in the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Division of Nutritional Sciences). The IACUC has always drawn its membership from several colleges and divisions.
The consolidation has centralized responsibility for animal care and use in the Provost's Office, although Bailey's center of operations, the Center for Research Animal Resources, still is physically located in the College of Veterinary Medicine and is staffed with specially trained and experienced veterinarians and technicians. The facilities for housing laboratory animals have been reduced to 116 from more than 140.
"As research projects start up and are concluded, the needs of the university constantly change," said Bailey, a veterinarian specializing in laboratory animal medicine and science. "Some of our facilities were underutilized or were being used for different purposes than their original design called for -- and some could never be brought up to the high standards that are required for animal facilities -- so we decommissioned some, will renovate others and have embarked on some new construction projects."
For example, among the 31 sites across New York state where Cornell keeps laboratory animals, the Department of Natural Resources' Shackleton Point field station on Oneida Lake replaced its old fish facility. The Corson-Mudd complex, home to research birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians, is undergoing a $4 million renovation of spaces used by the departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and of Neurobiology and Behavior. Some $8 million in renovations and upgrades are planned for Uris Hall, where Department of Psychology researchers study birds and mammals.
The Division of Nutritional Sciences will get new animal facilities, although the site and the budget have yet to be determined. In the veterinary college, dogs at the James A. Baker Institute for Animal Health have new quarters, and major renovations are planned to the Small Animal Holding Facility.
But the biggest changes in Cornell's capacity for housing animals are still to come, Adler noted. He points to the $140 million Life Sciences Technology Building, set for construction on the south side of Tower Road, and the $55 million East Campus Research Facility, sited near the veterinary college. Planned completion for both buildings is in 2007. These facilities will boost Cornell's "mouse house" capacity to more than 80,000 transgenic mice for genomics-related research. About $16 million in the total cost of the life sciences building will go for animal facilities -- in a structure that also will feature classroom, laboratory and offices spaces -- whereas the east campus facility will be all about animals.
Cornell people, too, are seeing changes. Some of the department technicians who care for animals will become members of the Center for Research Animal Resources, a move that will standardize training received by all the university's animal caretakers, provide operational efficiencies and enhance flexibility as research program needs change.
As animal-holding spaces are renovated or rebuilt, research principal investigators will be expected to pay per-diem charges for animal care, Adler advised. The per-diem requirement is being phased in, he said, to give principal investigators enough lead time to include the additional expense in future research grants.
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