Our Services and Facilities

The McLaughlin Animal Resource Center seeks to facilitate biomedical research and education for those in urban and rural communities across the Montana and the nation.

Animal Resource Center

  • The MRI Animal Resource Center is a state-of-the-art facility, designed specifically to house mice in a safe and clean environment. The ARC facility was designed and constructed to meet exacting regulatory standards required for the operation of research animal facilities. The ARC has been fully AAALAC accredited since 1996.

    McLaughlin Research Institute staff includes AALAS-certified Animal Care Technicians, Certified Veterinary Technicians, as well as skilled Cage Wash Technicians.

    MRI’s Animal Resource Center currently has excess capacity over current faculty needs that is now available to help meet the demand for biomedical discovery and transgenic mouse services.

  • Provide healthy, genetically defined, specific-pathogen-free mice for use in IACUC-approved research, educational and testing protocols.

    Ensure that research mice are cared for in a humane and appropriate manner by the provision of modern, well-maintained facilities, trained personnel, technical support, veterinary care and monitoring of animal care and use.

    Work with Institute scientists and collaborators to ensure the availability of resources and technical assistance for their research projects.

    Ensure that only pathogen-free mice are introduced into the facility by maintaining an active quarantine program and by working with the transgenic mouse facility to re-derive mice from other organizations that test positive for mouse pathogens.

    Maintain an active surveillance and sentinel program for mouse pathogens.

    Ensure observance of ethical standards and federal regulations pertaining to the care and use of mice for research, education and testing at McLaughlin Research Institute.

  • Rose Pitstick
    Animal Resource Facility Director
    rose@mclaughlinresearch.org

Transgenic services: The GEMMA (Gene Editing and Mouse Model Assessment) Core

Transgenic Services are offered by the Animal Resource Center through the Gene Editing and Mouse Models Assessment (GEMMA) Core of the Center for Biomedical and Rural Health Research (NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence Award #P20GM152335.

Contract Research

  • McLaughlin Research Institute (MRI) has been widely recognized for its significant contributions to biomedical research especially in the generation of preclinical animal models and mouse genetics since 1954. MRI’s Animal Resource Center currently has excess capacity over current faculty needs that is now available to help meet the demand for biomedical discovery and transgenic mouse services. As a small, independent, mouse-only facility, the Institute is able to offer specific pathogen-free, secure mouse space and genetic expertise at a reasonable cost.

  • Historically, pharmaceutical companies have sought out MRI as a collaborator to accelerate drug target discovery in a cost-efficient manner by taking advantage of our first-rate facility, equipment, and expertise. Past and current for-profit collaborators include EMD Serono, Amgen, Celltech, Ionis Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Oncology (f/k/a Millenium Pharmaceuticals). MRI continues to foster collaborations with pharma although names of companies cannot always be disclosed. MRI currently has multiple collaborations with for-profit companies and other non-profit organizations to test therapeutics in pre-clinical mouse trials. MRI also has collaborations with academic researchers at Stanford University, Phenome Health, Inc, Touro University, Western Washington University, the University of Washington, Rutgers University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Wake Forest University, the University of Montana, and Montana State University who have taken the opportunity to expand their research at an affordable cost by using McLaughlin’s Animal Resource Center.

    The user-friendly and service-oriented mouse facility at MRI features outstanding animal care and houses MRI’s transgenic facility for transgenic, reproductive, and cryopreservation technologies. Since 1996, our Animal Resource Center has been fully accredited by AAALAC International. The Institute’s skilled, AALAS-certified animal technicians adhere to rigorous animal health and genetic quality control practices. MRI enjoys the counsel of a strong Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC). Current SAC members are: Irving L. Weissman, MD (Chair), Stanford University School of Medicine; Leroy E. Hood, MD, PhD, Institute for Systems Biology; Frances Lefcort, PhD, Montana State University; Frank Bennett, Ionis Pharmaceuticals and N-Lorem and David Anderson, PhD, CalTech.

    We also welcome traditional, investigator-initiated collaborations with MRI faculty: Deborah Cabin, mouse models for Parkinson’s disease and alpha-synuclein function; Teresa Gunn, mutations causing neurodegenerative disease; Tiffany Hensley-McBain; Mikael Klingeborn, role of exosomes in macular degeneration, protein misfolding, exosomal biomarkers, and therapeutics; Moses Leavens, protein biochemistry, biophysics, virology, and neurodegeneration; and Renee Reijo-Pera, Parkinson’s disease, human development and cell fate decisions.

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