Training and First Time User Information

Training and First Time User Information

First Time User Steps for Vertebrate Animal Use

1. Complete required CITI Training (see training requirements below)

2. Submit your IACUC protocol

  • If housing or using vertebrate animals at a facility, an IACUC inspection within the last 6 months is required for IACUC protocol approval. You can ask for an inspection prior to protocol submission or while your protocol is being reviewed. Contact awp@hawaii.edu.
  • If you will be holding or using animals in a facility or lab, administering biological materials into animals, collecting animal tissues/samples, or working with genetically modified animals, an IBC Protocol approval or IBC Exemption is required before IACUC can approve your protocol. It would be helpful to obtain IBC approval before submitting your IACUC protocols, but both IACUC and IBC can be submitted at the same time. Contact uhibc@hawaii.edu to determine what type of review is needed.
No IBC review needed beyond the review of the IACUC protocol:
  • Observational studies where animals are not touched, captured or sampled, animals are only observed
  • Capture and release studies where animals are caught briefly to measure, tag, mark, ID, toe clip (for ID only)
  • Studies when animals/samples from animals are received already in a chemical fixative/preservative
  • Studies where “healthy” animals are scanned in the field by ultrasound, X-ray, or other portable scan
IBC Exemption Approval Required:
  • Studies where WT animals (not Genetically Modified, Tg, KO, KI or Mutant) are housed/bred in a facility or lab, but no animal samples are taken and no innoculation of biological material occurs.       
  • Housing/breeding WT animals with nutrition studies where no GMO nutrients are used
  • Studies where “healthy” animals are brought into a facility only to undergo MRI, ultrasound, X-ray, or other scan
  • Studies where animals are administered radioactive materials only (no biological components)
  • Field/farm studies where non-invasive animal sampling occurs (no sharps), can include feces, hair, feathers, urine, saliva. Samples are not processed, analyzed or stored at UH, but instead are shipped for analyses at an outside lab. 
Requires a full IBC Registration:
  • Collecting animals/samples, processing, analyzing, and/or storing of any specimens at UH (includes toe clipping for testing purposes)
  • Innoculating biological materials (i.e. virus, bacteria, cells, vectors, bioparticles, biotoxins, proteins, antibodies, genomic material, other) into animals or cells that will be used in animals
  • All Procedures with sharps, including but not limited to surgeries, blood or other bodily fluid collection, other tissue collection, necropsy
  • Working with, breeding, or creating Genetically Modified, Transgenic, KO, KI or Mutant animals, and/or any other recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid activities
  • Working with known diseased animals
  • Projects involving bats and/or other endangered/protected/permitted animals 
  • Your Occupational Health and Safety Program is required as part of your IACUC protocol review. You will be asked to indicate whether you are enrolled in the Animal and Veterinary Services OHSP or if you have a self-written plan to address occupational health and safety.
  • If permits are required for your work, you will be asked to provide copies as part of your IACUC protocol submission.

3. Once your IACUC protocol is approved, complete hands-on, project-specific training under your mentor (if applicable). Obtain Vivarium Training and Access (if applicable).

Training

The Animal Welfare Regulations and Public Health Service Policy require all personnel involved with the care and use of animals must be adequately educated, trained, and/or qualified in basic principles of laboratory animal sciences to help ensure high-quality science and animal well-being; and that all training of Program personnel should be documented. (Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, 8th edition and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA, Animal Welfare 9 CFR).

Completion of CITI training (listed below) is required before an individual can be listed as project personnel on an IACUC protocol.

Refer to Animal and Veterinary Services Training and First Time User Information for more requirements related to veterinary care, requesting animal space in the biomedical vivarium, and/or access to the vivarium.

CITI Training Information

CITI Online Training (initial and refresher training every 3 years required). The following training is available from CITI Online Training:

  • Investigators, Staff and Students Basic Course (for all users)
  • Species Specific Course (for each species used on the user’s IACUC protocols)
  • Aseptic Surgery Course (for all users performing survival surgery)
  • Reducing Pain and Distress in Laboratory Mice and Rats

Register on the CITI website. Select “University of Hawai‘i Courses”. Take the courses suggested below. Questions regarding CITI training should be directed to CITI on their website.

CITI Basic Course For All Users:

  • If you are new to UH or a non-UH person who will be participating in a UH IACUC protocol, then you must take the CITI course entitled: “Investigators, staff, and students (UH)” before beginning any work with animals or entering an animal facility.
  • If it has been at least 3-years since completing the basic CITI course listed above, then you must take the CITI course entitled: “Refresher Course for investigators conducting research with laboratory animals-Refresher Course”

CITI Species-specific Courses:

  • If you are working with amphibians, you must take the CITI course entitled: “Working with Amphibians in Research Settings”
  • If you are working with beef cattle, then you must take the CITI course entitled: Working with Beef Cattle in Agricultural”
  • If you are working with marine mammals, you must take the CITI course entitled “Working with Marine Mammals”
  • If you are working with mice, you must take the CITI course entitled; “Working with Mice in Research” and the CITI course entitled ” Reducing Pain and Distress in Laboratory Mice and Rats”
  • If you are working with rats, you must take the CITI course entitled: “Working with Rats in Research Settings” and the CITI course entitled ” Reducing Pain and Distress in Laboratory Mice and Rats”

CITI Aseptic Survival Surgery Course:

If you will be performing or assisting in survival surgery no matter on what animal species, you must take the CITI course entitled: “Aseptic surgery”

Protocol-specific Instruction

The Principal Investigator is responsible for providing education on the specific procedures described in the IACUC-approved protocol and other education that promotes best research practices and safety. All such instruction and learning must be documented and available to the IACUC for review. Examples of protocol-specific instruction includes euthanasia procedures, survival surgery, ear tagging or notching, and genotyping.