DoD Moves to Single Animal Use Appendix Template for All Protocol Submissions

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) recently announced changes to the formatting of appendices documents submitted for DoD funding via the Animal Care and Use Review Office (ACURO).

Specifically, the Office has moved to a single version of the ACURO Animal Use Appendix (note: clicking on this link will download a Word doc version of the new Appendix template); historically there have been two different versions of the appendix available for use.

This change applies to all protocols, regardless of whether fully or partially funded.

A separate Animal Use Appendix must be submitted for EACH protocol. Finally, as an important reminder, no animal studies may be conducted using DoD funds until ACURO approval has been granted.

You may also wish to familiarize yourself with changes that the DoD made to a number of their processes and procedures affecting animal care and use protocols, which were first announced in May 2019.

To help reduce administrative burden on U-M researchers, the U-M Animal Care & Use Office (ACUO) has developed several process improvements that better support the need for flexibility in administering animal care and use protocols from the DoD. An overview of these process improvements can be found on the Animal Care & Use Program website.

Questions?

Please reach out to your Research Compliance Associate in the ACUO for help with processing animal use protocols and amendments, or for assistance with understanding federal animal care and use rules and regulations.