Animal House Facility

The Animal House Facility of the University of Barcelona, within the SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital (located in the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona) has an area of 270 m2.

Conceived for the research connected with the use of laboratory animals that is carried out by researchers of SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital and of the University of Barcelona, it has been designed and built according to the regulations established by the Government of Catalonia in Decree 214/97, dated 20th July. In compliance with this decree, the unit is registered with the Department of the Environment under number B9900063.

Equipments

The unit has an independent animal housing area which can accommodate different species of animals (small rodents and lagomorphs) under controlled conditions of temperature, humidity, and light/darkness cycles. It also has a specific housing area for immunosuppressed animals.

Likewise, three experimentation rooms are equipped to allow their users to carry out their research, with surgery tables, lamps, gases, anaesthesia equipment, scales, centrifuge, -80° freezer, 4° refrigerator, autoclave, agitators, etc., as well as computer support media.

Services

The Animal Experimentation Unit, which is equipped with suitable facilities to provide support for research, has these functions:

• To supply and maintain experimentation animals.
• To assure the appropriate care of the animals and to verify their welfare and health status.
• To provide counselling and technical support to users.
• To assure that compliance is made with all the ethical standards and legal rules established in Decree 214/97 of the Government of Catalonia.
• To assess the experimental procedures through the Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee (CEEA) of the University of Barcelona.

Regulations for use

All the research personnel who collaborate on research programmes with experimentation animals can use the facilities if they are linked to SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital or the University of Barcelona. All the personnel using this unit needs to be accredited by the Government of Catalonia.