GA-Rodents: Colony Management, breeding strategies and genetic quality control

This course is aimed at laboratory animal professionals running or involved in the management of a large number of rodent colonies, such as colony managers and coordinators, senior animal technicians, and facility managers. 

Learning outcomes:

By the end of the training, attendees will be able to:

• Understand the key factors required for optimal colony management (CM);
• Understand and apply useful tips and tools to assist with implementation of optimal colony management; 
• Understand and apply the organisational management structures and services necessary for optimal CM;
• Understand quality assurance and maintenance processes of inbred & GA strains, and evaluate their own set up to implement relevant pipelines; 
• Evaluate data analysis for GA Colonies, with particular reference to genetic background and microbiome.

Contents:

• Importance of Colony Management for Quality Control and Genetic Integrity
• Choosing strains - finding the right mutation, tools & resources.
• Overview on validating models
• Breeding Strategies for Maintaining Colonies of Laboratory Mice
• GM Data examples and analysis
• Colony Sizing Scenarios
• Cryopreservation
• Genetic Monitoring: Importance of Genetic background & stability
• Colony Management Reporting and analysis tools
• Microbiota - monitoring of stability and impact on phenotype

Fondazione Guido Bernardini