Because mice biological systems, genetics, and immunological responses, in many ways, closely resembles ours as a species, animal research and animal research facilities are critical endpoints to the biological and biomedical research. Of significance is their role in the development and safety testing to pre-clinical validation of potential novel biomolecules/biomaterials that can be translated to the Industry.

The BioLab Animal Experimentation Laboratory has two clean separate specialized rooms and equipment with closely-controlled environment and a separate room for unclean activities to reduce the potential for cross-contamination.

Application examples:

• Regenerative medicine (e.g. C57BL/6 mice CD® Hairless Rat – polymers, compounds, drugs, natural and synthetic fibres, etc)

• Cancer and other diseases (e.g. NOD/SCID and Balb/c) (testing for drugs; Compounds (chemical, natural); Natural polymers; Nanoparticles (e.g. gold, silver, magnetic, liposomes, etc); Microparticles; Cell lines (e.g. tumour); siRNAs).
• Toxycity assessement.

Publications:

• Martins, M. et al. In vitro and in vivo biological characterization of the anti-proliferative potential of a cyclic trinuclear organotin(iv) complex. Mol. Biosyst. 12, 1015–23 (2016).
• Raposo, L. R. et al. Immortalization and characterization of a new canine mammary tumour cell line FR37-CMT. Vet. Comp. Oncol. (2016).
  
• Conde, J. et al. RNAi-based glyconanoparticles trigger apoptotic pathways for in vitro and in vivo enhanced cancer-cell killing. Nanoscale 7, 9083–9091 (2015).
• Conde, J., Bao, C., Cui, D., Baptista, P. V. & Tian, F. Antibody–drug gold nanoantennas with Raman spectroscopic fingerprints for in vivo tumour theranostics. J. Control. Release 183, 87–93 (2014).
• Conde, J. et al. In vivo tumor targeting via nanoparticle-mediated therapeutic siRNA coupled to inflammatory response in lung cancer mouse models. Biomaterials 34, 7744–7753 (2013).