The Import Portal - Portalen
KM strives to ensure a satisfactory health status of all animals used in research, which is in line with legal requirements as well as the 3R principle. Import Portal is the quarantine facility at Comparative Medicine (KM) at Karolinska Institutet.
Generally, laboratory animals imported to animal facilities have to go through quarantine first due to uncertain or unsatisfactory health status. Animals could have uncertain health status due to conditions at the sender animal facility (e.g. the health report is incomplete), or the conditions during the transport of the animals cannot guarantee that the animals are free from exposure to pathogens (e.g. transport in airplanes).
At the Import Portal animals are housed in an IsoCage-system under strict conditions until the health test results come back satisfactory to the receiving animal facility. If the health report is not satisfying, a new approach is decided by the responsible facility veterinarian.
Animal models with uncertain health status that will undergo re-derivation (pathogen elimination through embryo transfer) and cryopreservation at Karolinska Center for Transgene Technologies (KCTT) are also housed at the Import Portal.
The routines for how to proceed when you want to import laboratory animals to the animal facilities at Comparative Medicine are presented below.
Import routines
Importing animals via the Import Portal
The Import Portal uses the core facility management system iLab at KI.
iLab at KI staff portal
Information regarding experiments and breeding at the Import Portal
The Import Portal is a quarantine facility and is not constructed to be an experimental unit. Researchers do not have access to this facility, and there are no laboratories associated to the unit. Nor do we allow breeding unless very special reasons validate an exception e.g. decreased fertility at an early age. Such decisions is taken from case to case and if you need to perform experiments or breeding at Import Portal during the quarantine, please, contact us for further discussions. A written enquiry and approved ethics permit (where KM-W is included) are required.