LARU (Phase I) was opened in 2015 to cater for the need of increasing demand on Life Science animal research, and currently supports 35 Faculty members and 300 research staffs/students across different Departments at CityU. In 2019, LARU with the soft opening of Phase II expansion that could accommodate for more than 30,000 animals (mainly rodent) to cope with the significant increase in animal studies at CityU. LARU Phase II is a barrier facility that ensures the health and well-being of animals colonies equipped with air or wet shower entry, sterilized autoclaved or irradiated feed, filtered and sterilized drinking water, steam-sterilized bedding, microisolator caging (individual ventilated cage units), disinfection of all supplies and equipment, and strict barrier sanitation of caging equipment through cabinet washers. All the areas are equipped with HEPA filters, directional air flow and are operated in sequence from clean to dirty to further protect the research animals. We committed to upholding animal welfare by introducing minimum cage space requirements for all laboratory animals.
We set up a quarantine facility and sentinel monitoring program to facilitate animal import and export. Our in-house Veterinarian consultant works closely with us to have regular on-site inspection, maintain animal health report data, and advice on animal import/export issues. Animal users are required to change into sterilized gown, gloves, mask, cap, and sterilized shoes, and shoe covers. We also include a Biological Safety Level 2 (BSL-2) animal lab, which allows animal users to work on level 2 microbes for infectious diseases. The BSL-2 lab will equip with independent HVAC system, an anteroom as buffer room, self-locked doors (door open one at a time), portable autoclave, surgery and dissection area.
LARU offers regular training workshops to qualified animal users aim to introduce important information on animal husbandry and care, appropriate attire for work in the facility and safe use of facility equipment, proper animal handling techniques such as restraint, sexing, oral feeding and intra-peritoneal injection. We have a specific-pathogen free area for centralized supply of wildtype and transgenic mice maintained by LARU technical staffs. We also provide surgery room equipped with advanced equipment including dissecting microscope with digital video camera system for teaching purposes, digital stereotaxic instrument for brain surgery and microinjection system, isoflurane anesthesia system, and downdraft surgery tables to ensure a safe working environment. We also offer BVM students husbandry Extra-Mural Studies placements during summer time.
