The Animal Models and Imaging Facility (AMIF) has been established to accommodate the growing animal management needs of research laboratories and to provide state-of-the-art molecular imaging to West Virginia University researchers and their collaborators. Conveniently located within the OLAR Animal Facility in the WVU Health Sciences Center, the AMIF currently performs acute and longitudinal bioluminescence and fluorescence studies on mice using the Xenogen IVIS® Lumina Imaging System.  This system allows researchers to perform in vivo imaging using real-time imaging to monitor and record cellular and genetic activity within a mouse or rat using fluorescent and/or bioluminescent reporters.  In addition, this facility also offers additional services such as mouse colony management, tissue collection, cryopreservation of sperm and various surgeries.  The AMIF is a fee-for-service facility run by Mindy Hollander, a skilled technician who is available for consultation and assistance with experimental design and data interpretation.

Animal colony management can be very time-consuming and can cut into precious research time. Therefore, AMIF offers colony management services to facilitate your research leaving you and your lab personnel more time in the laboratory. In addition to saving you time, AMIF believes in keeping costs down and will work hard to maintain an adequate number of animals for your research all while keeping cage numbers to a minimum.

In addition to animal colony management, AMIF also offers services such as injections, blood/tissue collection, health monitoring, and surgeries. See these sections under “Services” for more specific information.

Please note that Cancer Center members will have priority for animal colony management and animal procedures/services. PI's with other center affiliations can only be accommodated if time permits and even then, no guarantees can be made. Please keep this in mind as mouse colony management is VERY time sensitive.

AMIF will soon be offering in vivo animal imaging using the Xenogen IVIS® Lumina Imaging System which provides highly sensitive imaging of fluorescent and/or bioluminescent reporters both in vivo and in vitro. Initially, this service will only be available for mice but we are hoping to expand our services to rats in the near future. This service will be equally available to all Department and Center affiliations.

To take advantage of the services offered by AMIF, you must FIRST make sure your ACUC protocol is up-to-date. Mindy Hollander must be added to your ACUC protocol. If you will be taking advantage of the animal colony management services, you will need to have breeding on your protocol, and if you will be using AMIF for imaging services, you must add an amendment for the in vivo imaging. See the Operations page for more information regarding ACUC protocol requirements.