BRF Update - March 2022
Hi everyone,
I hope you are all doing as well as possible considering the recent challenges with the floods and continued COVID situation. I have been away on leave for a month and I wanted to commend Karen and the BRF team for handling a number of significant challenges whilst I was away, including keeping the facility operations continuing throughout the floods!
We have a number of updates, please read on:
Upcoming public holidays – changes to internal animal transfers (TRI breeding to TRI research wing)
With a series of public holidays coming up, the team will be working hard to fit various operations into shorter time windows. The following are planned changes to our usual days/times, please let us know if you have any queries or issues:
|
Week |
Public holidays |
Changes to services |
|
11-17th April |
Friday 15th April (Good Friday) |
Internal transfers (breeding to research wing) will occur on Tues and Thurs and may not be moved until 3pm. |
|
18-24th April |
Monday 18th April (Easter Monday) |
Internal transfers (breeding to research wing) will occur on Weds and Fri and may not be moved until 3pm. |
|
25th April to 1st May |
Monday 25th April (ANZAC Day) |
Internal transfers (breeding to research wing) will occur on Weds and Fri and may not be moved until 3pm. |
|
2nd to 8th May |
Monday 2nd May (Labour Day) |
Internal transfers (breeding to research wing) will occur on Weds and Fri and may not be moved until 3pm. |
Cull log – ending 4th April, moving to using Mosaic
We will be removing the physical paper cull log on 4th April from the facility and the ongoing expectation will be that records for animals that have died/are euthanised are recorded directly into the Mosaic database on the computers inside the facility.
For anyone who has not yet completed the online training, a reminder that the online instructions on how to do this are here (UQ login required): https://biological-resources.uq.edu.au/mosaic-database. Look at ‘Mosaic Research Access 2.1 – Animal movements, update euthanasia records and request culls’. Please note that the ‘request culls function’ is not available yet to all labs currently with the TRI BRF processes, further advice on this will be announced in the coming months as we include this with transitioning labs to colony management via Mosaic.
We are continuing to offer in-person training to ensure researchers are comfortable with the above Mosaic functionality as well as logging into the computers, getting printers/scanners working in the room. If you would like to attend please register for an upcoming timeslot here (TRI login required): https://trilearningcentre.talentlms.com/unit/view/id:2796
Gaseous anaesthetic equipment – training sessions
A trial setup of new gaseous anaesthetic equipment has been set up in 1067. The BRF are starting to offer a trial of practical training sessions in the use of this setup to established users only to start with, as we are finalising the training materials and a few other logistics. This means only researchers/students with existing access to anaesthetic equipment on PPMS – to book a session please click here:
https://trilearningcentre.talentlms.com/catalog/info/id:248
For those who have not received training in gaseous anaesthetics at the TRI BRF before, they will need to complete the full training process starting with online theory: https://biological-resources.uq.edu.au/training-biological-resources
BRF manager roles – updates
I would like to welcome back Rodrick Rupan into the Deputy Manager role, starting from the beginning of this week, from his secondment with the UQBR Compliance team – we’re very happy to have Rick back on board, with all the additional knowledge and experience gained from the secondment.
For 4 weeks starting 28th March, I will be covering higher duties for the UQBR Director role whilst Kevin is on leave, so Karen will kindly be stepping up again into the Senior Manager role 28th March to 25th April. Please bear with us and let us know ASAP if there are any issues with the transitions in roles.
