Vertebrate animals

If you are planning to conduct research on vertebrate animals (e.g., mice), then please speak with your mentor about obtaining approval from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Columbia.

Before you can begin research on vertebrate animals, you must be trained and appropriately qualified. To this end, you will need to attend training courses, obtain occupational health approval, and be added to your mentor’s research protocol. For a summary of this process, see the Training Flowchart.

The training and certification process is conducted by the Institute of Comparative Medicine (ICM) and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Columbia. Given that the training process varies depending on the vertebrate species you intend to study (e.g., mouse, rat or pigeon), you will need to speak with your mentor about the specific training requirements.

For occupational health approval, you will need to:

1. Fill out the occupational health clearance form with your mentor.
2. Obtain clearance from a health care provider (note: during the academic year, go to BC health services; during the summer, go to CU health services in John Jay).

Important note: this training and certification process often takes 3-4 weeks to complete, so begin early.