Animal Research CUE Sheet - 08.05.2025
August 05, 2025
Animal Care and Use Express (CUE) Sheet
A bi-monthly (ish) communication with important information to keep you right on cue!
FY 25-26 | Issue 2
The first day of Fall classes is September 2nd and our IACUC and DLAR staff are gearing up for an exciting semester! This newsletter will outline some important reminders, updates, and other information to help you prepare.
Reminders
Check Your Protocol Expiration Dates. This is especially important for those PIs with teaching/training protocols—make sure your protocol does not expire during the semester if you will be teaching with animals this Fall semester. Your new submissions must be in before August 15 to be reviewed at the September meeting.
No IACUC Meeting in August. We will use our Designated Member Review process for amendments, renewals, and certain other types of protocols, but if you are designing a new and/or complex protocol, please note that the submission will likely be reviewed at our September meeting.
Check Training for Your Lab Personnel. Make sure you and your staff are up to date on training, including PI/Animal User Training (dates below!), Occupational Health Enrollment, and other lab specific training. We recently created a database of Animal User Training and Occ Health expiration dates for all known, current lab personnel. Renée Kahn will be reaching out to PIs with lists later this month.
A Note About Emails. Emails and other announcements relevant to IACUC activities for PIs, Department Chairs, Deans, etc., may come from any member of the IACUC Administrative Office Team. We will do our best to consolidate and filter information via email in order to avoid unnecessarily filling up your inbox, but please check all emails from Pam Lanford, Shannon Stutler, Renée Kahn, Cecily Holland and Scotty Beland to ensure you are up to date.
Updates
POSTPONED: Open House: Meet Our Attending Veterinarian! This event, originally scheduled for September 18, has been postponed. In its place, we are planning a special event around the holidays and we look forward to sharing more details soon.
DLAR Community Dialogue
Under the leadership of our new AV, Dr. Luis Lugo organized and delivered the inaugural DLAR Community Dialogue session on Friday, July 25th. These dialogues will occur quarterly and up to 2 hours of time will be reserved to accommodate for presentations from DLAR staff and questions from attendees.
DLAR has several exciting updates to share from new services, information about centralization, and new methods for reporting animal health concerns and animal census. You may have received some information about these topics from the DLAR team in a separate email, but just in case you missed it—you can use the links below to see the slides and/or recording.
The next DLAR Community Dialogue will be on October 24th, 2025 from 12-2 pm. Please save the date in your calendar and be on the lookout for communications from the DLAR Team with more information.
To mitigate cross-listing and extra emails, the DLAR Team will also be creating their own listservs and communications strategy for disseminating this news with you in the future. If you have any questions about the slides or recording, please email dlarmgmt@umd.edu.
Digital Census for PI-Managed Housing Areas
In order to collect animal census reports from our PI-Managed Housing Areas, we have created custom Google Sheets for each lab and a smoother process to replace our previous one. All of those PIs have been contacted via email, and Scotty Beland is setting up quick (15-minute) appointments to set up the sheets and integrate them with each lab. This does not replace the in-lab daily husbandry and census logs. You must continue to document animals euthanized and alert the AV of any unanticipated deaths. If you have not yet met with Scotty, please email him at sbeland@umd.edu.
Also, if you have not already done so, please submit your July census reports to your appropriate NEW census sheets. Any questions, concerns, or difficulty with this process should also be reported to Scotty.
Other Reminders
- A version of these emails and other important announcements are now archived on the IACUC website “News & Announcements” page for your reference.
- DLAR and the UAV would like to remind you to submit all animal health logs when appropriate to dlar@umd.edu.
- Any questions about ASP submissions, amendments, approvals, grants congruency, and meeting schedules should be directed to iacuc@umd.edu. These emails go to the IACUC Administrative Office Team and are more likely to be responded to efficiently.
Fall 2025 PI/Animal User Training Dates
New PI/Animal User Training is required for all new PIs, students, assistants, etc., who will work directly with animals. This includes all handling, husbandry, procedures, transportation, etc.
Click here to register for NEW PI/Animal User Training
Refresher PI/Animal User Training is required every 3 years in order to continue working with animals.
Click here to register for REFRESHER PI/Animal User Training
| New PI/Animal User Training Dates: | Refresher PI/Animal User Training Dates: |
|---|---|
| August 6, 2025 at 10 am | August 11, 2025 at 2:30 pm |
| August 15, 2025 at 12 pm | August 21, 2025 at 8 am |
| August 21, 2025 at 11 am | September 3, 2025 at 11 am |
| August 27, 2025 at 3 pm | September 16, 2025 at 8 am |
| September 4, 2025 at 11 am | September 29, 2025 at 3 pm |
| September 10, 2025 at 8 am | |
| September 16, 2025 at 11:30 am | |
| September 17, 2025 at 10 am | |
| September 22, 2025 at 11 am | |
| September 30, 2025 at 2 pm |
Dates and times are subject to change/cancellation.