​After many years of serving the Intramural Research Program (IRP) Animal Users, the Department of Laboratory Medicine (DLM) discontinued processing diagnostic animal samples, effective December 31, 2021. In addition, DLM alerted the Animal Program Directors (APDs) of the plan this past fall, which gave the NIH APDs and the Office of Animal Care and Use (OACU) sufficient time to form a subcommittee to identify alternatives to meet the IRP research need. The Division of Veterinary Resources (DVR), Diagnostic and Research Services Branch (DRSB) Animal Health Surveillance Coordinator, Chris Ward, was a member of this subcommittee and gathered information with assistance from other subcommittee members, finding alternative laboratories for processing diagnostic samples.

If you know of a colleague who needs assistance locating alternative laboratories to process complete blood count and serum chemistry diagnostic animal samples, please direct them to Chris Ward with Rachel Fleischmann as her back-up. Chris can be reached by email at: wardc@ors.od.nih.gov, or by phone at 301-293-4141. Rachel can be reached by email at: fleischmannrm@mail.nih.gov or by phone at 301-496-7808. Chris or Rachel will gladly share the comprehensive PowerPoint presentation they and the subcommittee put together supplying contact information for commercial laboratories providing testing and their sample collection requirements.

Finally, if you used DLM in the past what happens to your data stored in DLM’s SoftWebPlus (SWP)? It will remain intact indefinitely. However, DLM recommends that you download your data into Excel or similar software. Unfortunately, you will not be able to add data received from your new vendor into SWP which is an information system solely used for DLM generated data.