Animal Facility (AF) Basic and translational cancer investigations at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center (HCC) are broadly focused on molecular understanding of cancer progression and development of novel preventatives and therapeutics (pharmacological agents, cell-based, and gene therapies) using in vitro and in vivo models of various cancers. Understanding biological processes from single molecule to whole animal is critical, and the Animal Facility (AF) is an essential shared resource charged with educating investigators and providing resources, expertise, and services when these scientific investigations require animal modeling. When new chemotherapeutic agents, diagnostic modalities, or preventive measures show promise using in vitro or theoretical methodologies, a key basic to translational step is use of animal models. This is often required prior to clinical evaluations. For development and testing of cancer prevention or treatment approaches, animal studies may be required to characterize the tumor responsiveness, survival curves, histopathologic changes, and discovery and validation of mechanistic biomarkers. Animal studies allow research teams to study the effectiveness of an intervention by measuring decreases in tumor burden or recruitment of immune effector cells to the tumor microenvironment in vivo. The AF provides investigators across all research programs access to healthy animals (mice, rats and musk shrews), transgenic strains, appropriate husbandry, veterinary support, veterinary pathologist expertise and novel dedicated equipment under barrier conditions (e.g., gamma irradiators, imaging devices) that allow multi-parametric and quantitative analyses of events in vivo in a highly reproducible manner and with efficiency.
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