Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Animal research at UNLV problem-free

UNLV researcher Stanley Hillyard gets excited about the drinking habits of desert toads.

Amphibians like the "rather-cute" Red Spotted Toad use the skin on their lower abdomens to absorb water, Hillyard said, holding up one of the creatures in his UNLV laboratory. The skin has nerves similar to human taste buds that appear to tell the toad the salt content of the water and whether the water is safe to drink.

Hillyard, who teaches physiology at UNLV's School of Dental Medicine, has been observing the process the toads go through to drink as a way of better understanding how they function in a desert environment and how they process the water. Just like humans, the toad's water and salt intake is critical to the function of their organs, Hillyard said, and studying the toad gives him more insight into the process in humans.

How saliva works, for instance, "is really important to dentists," Hillyard said.

Hillyard is one of 18 active investigators involved in 52 animal research projects at UNLV, most of which focus on the study of desert animals, like the endangered desert tortoise. About half of all of the current projects include field observations in the natural habitats of the animals, Marsha Moon, supervisor of laboratory animal care services at UNLV, said.

Animal research at the Las Vegas university has plugged along quietly while its Reno neighbor, UNR, has been lambasted by the press and an animal rights' group for violating federal animal welfare regulations in its laboratories.

UNLV has stayed out of the limelight for two main reasons, officials said. For one, UNLV has never had any reports or complaints of violations, USDA spokesman Darby Holladay said. Secondly, the university's animal research work is minuscule compared to its Northern neighbor and to other institutions, UNLV and UNR officials said.

More than 80 percent of the state's animal research occurs at UNR, which operates the medical school and a College of Agriculture, said veterinarian Dr. Richard Simmonds, director of laboratory animal medicine for the Nevada System of Higher Education. UNR owns more than 1,850 animals, spokeswoman Jane Tors said, including more than 1,000 mice and rats and 300 sheep.

UNLV only has a few dozen animals at any one time, with only eight animal care rooms and three temperature-controlled rooms in its facilities, Moon said.

Animal research at UNR brought in close to $39 million in grant money to that university this past year, or about one-third of all research dollars, Tors said. Animal research brought in about $680,000 in grant money to UNLV, less than 2 percent of total research dollars, spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said.

And whereas biomedical testing on animals is a focus at UNR because of the medical school, any biomedical testing done at UNLV's facilities is through Las Vegas-based University of Nevada School of Medicine professors, said Mark Rudin, UNLV associate vice president of research services. Currently, Dr. Bill Zamboni, chief of surgery at the University Medical Center, is using rats to study the way wounds heal and how to improve the bone marrow transplants.

Some of the researchers under Zamboni have also recently studied how to improve the repairs of cleft palates, and for that research rabbits were used, Moon and Rudin said during a tour of UNLV's labs.

Animal research has been involved in all of the major medical advances for the last century, Moon and veterinarian Dr. Richard Simmonds each emphasized.

"They refine techniques and develop new techniques on these animals," said Moon, noting that the research can also lead to improved care for animals as well as humans.

Most of UNLV's research work with animals is focused on understanding how the animals function in the desert ecology. The aim is improve their survival rates. That was the case with a recent long-term project that studied the incubation of desert tortoises, Moon said.

The Reno university recently came under fire from an animal rights group, Stop Animal Exploitation Now, which named UNR's laboratories the worst in the nation because of 46 violations found by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the last year. The group wants all animal testing halted, according to its Web site.

According to the USDA report on UNR, written by the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, inspectors from May 2004 to March 2005 found seven incidents of animals not having water, three incidents of food being provided in an unsanitary way, and three instances where there was not sufficient veterinarian care.

About 25 citations were connected to facility issues, either due to the structural strength of the materials being used or to the cleanliness of the pens. There were six failures to properly follow the IACUC regulations.

The USDA violations were a first for UNR, Simmonds said.

The university chose to settle the case for $11,400 rather than fight the violations, but Simmonds contends that many of the allegations were untrue, such as the one about animals being without water. Many of the farm animals, such as the pigs, will knock over their water when they aren't thirsty, Simmonds said.

Still, John Lilley, UNR's president, and Marsha Read, interim vice president for research, say they are taking the USDA report and the recommendations of external consultants very seriously.

The university has made $350,000 in upgrades to its animal facilities over the last two years and improved its documentation procedures. One major upgrade was an automatic watering system.

"If there's anything I, as president of the university, believe in it's that we can be better," Lilley said. "If we have problem we don't sweep it under the rug. We deal with it head on."

UNR and UNLV's animal facilities are subject to unannounced inspections from Simmonds and from USDA officials, Simmonds said.

The most recent USDA inspection was on Feb. 24, UNLV officials said. A copy of that report provided by UNLV notes that it was a routine inspection and the findings consist of three sentences: "Inspection performed at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas campus. No non-compliance seen on this inspection. Inspection performed by David G. Kaminsky VMO, and accompanied by Marsha Moon, supervisor of Lab Animal Care."

UNLV is also subject to inspections to keep its additional accreditation with the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animals Care. UNR is pursuing accreditation from the organization.

Both institutions also oversee all animal research projects through USDA- mandated Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees. Every person involved in animal research must go through special training and must submit heavily reviewed protocols to gain approval to use animals in their research, said Hillyard, who heads UNLV's committee.

UNLV researchers have to convince the committee of the importance of their work and why animals are needed, Hillyard said.

"It's all processed through quite a bit of layers to make sure the science is valid and that the animal welfare is taken care of," Hillyard said.

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