Castel Romano

The Plaisant Animal Facility is located in the southern part of Rome, within the Scientific Hub of the Consorzio Tecnopolo of Castel Romano, in a working environment with companies interested in innovation and biotechnology development.

The Animal Facility is designed for biomedical research, it is unique in its kind and it offers animal housing and third-party research services.

The facility is devised according to the current national and European laws for the maintenance and care of the welfare of the following laboratory animals: mice, rats and zebrafish. It covers an area of over 1,000 sqm and is structured for breeding and maintaining about 4,000 mice in the SPF environment and 10,000 between mice and rats in a clean conventional area.

To complete the animal facility areas, there is quarantine with isolators used for the derivation of murine lines.

Rodent housing is carried out in IVC racks, with dedicated cages changing procedures involving the “Changing Station” tarp.

5 surgical procedures laboratories (rodents/aquatic) are available for the users.

The protection of animal health and environment is ensured by the designated veterinarian and the animal welfare officer through close quarterly health monitoring.

Experimental Support Services:

Animal housing and third-party management of murine lines
Managing colonies
Genotyping
Administration of medicinal products in different modalities (oral, intraperitoneal, intravenous)
Tumour growth assessment in xenograft and syngeneic models
Extraction of organs, blood and embryos from rodents
Health monitoring
Reviving murine lines
Embryo transfering
Cryopreservation of embryos and sperms
Logistic service for import/export of mice at national and international level
Support for compiling Annex VI, and OPBA evaluation.

The Plaisant Animal Facility grants the direct management of all stages of the animal housing and provides highly qualified scientific technical support.