Colony management service
The colony management service provided by TCDM includes mouse husbandry, breeding, record keeping, identification marking by ear-punching and tail and/or ear punch biopsies for genotyping. Genotyping can be performed by the investigator or TCDM. Euthanasia of negative or excess mice is one of the services that is included in colony management to keep the number of mice and costs at minimum. TCDM provides also technical expertise including drug administration, blood sample collection and colony management training for people with no previous experience in mouse work.
Surgical techniques
Many experimental set-ups require the use of advanced surgical techniques. TCDM supports researchers by providing technical expertise on various experimental methods. In addition to the techniques listed below, other techniques may be available upon request. Techniques available are: gonadectomy, ovariectomy, vasectomy, ovary transfers, mammary gland transfers, placing subcutaneous implants, orthotopic and subcutaneous inoculation of cancer cells etc.
Rederivation
A purpose of rederivation is to remove various mouse pathogens from a mouse line using embryo transfer. The method is based on the fact that most pathogens are unable to penetrate an intact zona pellucida and infect preimplantation-stage embryos. Rederivation can be performed also from embryos/sperm collected elsewhere. Resulting progeny is specific pathogen free (SPF). For further information, please contact TCDM.