1022 
ANIMAL RESOURCES 
Dean, School of Medicine ^ V.P. Health Sciences 
t 
Chairman, Dept. of Exp. An. Med.^^ 
^ /Clinical Veterinarian 
Director, Diagnostic Laboratory''^ -Vivarium Director 
^ ~ - , ^ " -Researchers in School of Medicine 
~ "-Researchers in all other 
school and colleges 
SERVICE INPUT 
The projected goals of the Diagnostic Lab- 
oratory were in accord with those of a resource 
investigative laboratory as defined by McPher- 
son.^ Since research and in-depth investigations 
of naturally occurring diseases of laboratory 
animals are part of the defined mission of an 
investigative type laboratory, the name 'Diag- 
nostic Laboratory' is somewhat of a misnomer 
in that it implies solely a service facility. Diag- 
nostic services have certainly been an important 
function of our facility, but it has been used to 
a great extent for research and training as well. 
ORGANIZATION 
The laboratory was organized around key 
professional personnel in an attempt to maxi- 
mize the efficiency with which we could carry 
out the specific objectives discussed below. The 
director of the facility is a veterinary patholo- 
gist (D.V.M., Ph.D.) who is certified by the 
American College of Veterinary Pathologists 
(ACVP). In addition, a veterinary virologist 
(D.V.M., Ph.D.) is on the staff and a clinical 
veterinarian (D.V.M., M.S.) who is certified 
by the American College of Laboratory Animal 
Medicine (ACLAM) devotes about 10 to 15% 
of his time to the diagnostic laboratory. Since 
the bulk of our service activities is related to 
post-mortem examination of laboratory animals 
or to clinical pathology or bacteriology in sup- 
port of the clinical veterinarian, he and the 
pathologist are more directly involved with 
diagnostic services than the virologist who de- 
votes a greater portion of his time to research. 
All of these individuals hold faculty appoint- 
ments in the Department of Experimental Ani- 
mal Medicine, School of Medicine. 
The diagnostic laboratory is divided into sec- 
tions according to certain disciplines for the 
purpose of defining the responsibilities of the 
technical personnel and for division of respon- 
sibility among the professional personnel. 
A. Histology 
The histology section is under the direct su- 
pervision of the pathologist. It is staffed by one 
full-time histopathology technician and one 
part-time technician or student trainee in his- 
tology. The histology laboratory was fully 
equipped so that almost any type of histopatho- 
logic procedure could be performed. A cryostat 
enables frozen sectioning for histochemical and 
immunofluorescent procedures. The histologic 
stains most frequently used are listed in Ap- 
pendix 1. 
B. Clinical Pathology 
The clinical laboratory section is supervised 
jointly by the pathologist and the clinical vet- 
erinarian. It is staffed by one full-time regis- 
tered medical technologist (M.T.) certified by 
the American Society of Clinical Pathologists 
(ASCP). The laboratory was equipped so that 
a full complement of procedures could be per- 
formed in the areas of hematology, urine anal- 
ysis, clinical chemistry, and parasite examina- 
tions. We do not have the capability for doing 
correlative determinations of blood pH and 
blood gases. The procedures used are listed in 
Appendix II. 
Micro methods are used as much as possible 
and some procedures were performed totally 
by micro methods. This enabled determinations 
to be made on individual animals, such as mice, 
that could not have been done using macro 
methods. This is especially important in some 
research studies where statistical analysis are 
facilitated by individual values rather than a 
single value on a pooled sample. 
C. Bacteriology 
The supervisory responsibilities of the bac- 
teriology section are shared by the pathologist 
and the virologist. Although our intent had been 
to fill this position with a microbiology tech- 
nician with a B.S. or M.S. degree, it was staffed 
by an individual who had a veterinary degree 
