BRF Update - February 2020
We have a number of updates this month as everything ramps up:
Spare experimental animals
If you have any animals that you do not need in the experimental wing (even just 1), please email [email protected] ASAP. We are about to send out our next round of animals for colony screening and sending experimental animals is really useful if we can get them, to check the health status of animals in these areas.
Staffing changes
We have quite a few changes to a few roles in the BRF in the coming weeks:
Training Coordinator – I would like to welcome back Michelle Spraggon who is returning from maternity leave, starting back on 4th March - working 4 days per week Tues-Fri. Karen Knox has been acting in this role and will be returning to the Research Coordinator role on 9th March. I would like to say a massive thank you to Karen for all of her hard work and achievements whilst in this role – we have made huge progress in training up a number of our team to improve the flexibility and wellbeing of those performing technical services. Karen has also played a key role in developing a number of SOPs, video and online training resources in collaboration with UQBR.
Research Coordinator – I would like to thank Brad Buchan for all of his hard work in this fast-paced and demanding role – during Brad’s time in the role we saw a 50% increase in the hours of technical services we provided, including some very challenging bookings requiring long days and complex coordination/timing of procedures. Brad’s willingness to help out and learn has been critical to the success of these services. Brad will be returning to his role as an Animal Technical Officer on 9th March. Please note that Karen is only expected to be in this role for ~2 months as she will be going on maternity leave on 11th May – we will be recruiting for an acting role to cover her maternity leave.
Gnotobiotic Animal Technical Officer – I would like to welcome back Tina Weaver who is returning from maternity leave, starting on 24th Feb.
Senior Animal Technical Officer – I would like to congratulate Jason Zahra on being appointed to this new HEW 5 role which will be focused on supporting the research coordinator with technical appointments and training. Please let us know if you have any feedback or ideas around this new role.
Senior Facility Manager – I am undertaking some postgraduate study part time - remaining full time but with increased use of flexible hours and utilising leave for some courses. The next course running from mid-March to mid-April involves 3 weeks where I will out of the office for ~5 hours in the middle of each day, so I will be starting earlier and finishing later than usual and possibly taking up to a week of recreation leave. I will update my email signature with my availability and if you have any queries or concerns please do not hesitate to let us know.
Rat room
Over the last 12 months our rat room has been underutilised (empty) so we are seeking any advice/feedback on whether there are any plans from any of our researchers to perform rat work in the foreseeable future. This will help us make decisions on when and how we might repurpose this space.
Online training
We had a period from Dec until early this month where we removed the requirement for the external animal welfare training (Flaire) as the website providers were transitioning to a new system. We are now set up on the new website which has much better performance/accessibility, provides tracking of trainee progress and has greater number of courses and articles and updated our online induction training accordingly. We will be following up with those who have missed this component of their training in the coming weeks – please get in touch however if you would like to complete this sooner.
https://researchanimaltraining.com/
Mosaic – new animal database
We will soon start our first test run of a single animal colony on the new system, utilising duplicate data entry on the new and old databases. Once we are ready to provide further updates and training we will pass details on but I just wanted to raise awareness in case anyone sees the new cage cards around.
As always, please get in touch if you have any feedback, suggestions or concerns.
