A Message to Our Users
The COVID-19 pandemic is a constantly evolving situation and the IMPC knows it is vital that our users are kept up-to-date on the status of our resources. All of our centres are curtailing mouse production and phenotyping activities to ensure staff remain safe and resources are focused on responding to the pandemic. Mouse welfare remains a top priority for IMPC consortium members, and we emphasise that our mice are still being well cared for by small numbers of animal technicians to respond to and manage welfare issues. Phenotyping of lines is being finalised and we will no longer be taking phenotyping requests for the foreseeable future.
Our IMPC data wranglers and other bioinformatics staff continue to work from home remotely, enabling continued strong data support for users. The IMPC is continuing to load and analyse the phenotype data generated over the last year with data releases scheduled this spring and summer.
The mouse repositories the IMPC is partnered with are continuing to archive mouse strains to allow access to IMPC resources during and after the pandemic. Receiving mice/mouse strains from repositories may take longer than normal due to reduced staff presence. In addition, several of our consortium members and wider partners are offering emergency mouse archiving services for researchers who need to close down their laboratories during the pandemic period. For more information, please contact the repositories directly. A list of IMPC partnered repositories is linked below.
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are wide-reaching and require a coordinated response to this global challenge. International research infrastructures are rising to this challenge and playing an important part in the gathering, analysis and dissemination of knowledge about COVID-19. The IMPC will continue to use our unrivalled international network to support researchers in this fight and to ensure they can quickly and efficiently return to their research when the pandemic has passed.
31/06/2020 update: to further support the scientific community, we have compiled a list of IMPC alleles that can be used for the study of COVID-19. Please read our COVID-19 data page here for more information or find it underneath our ‘Data’ section.
IMPC Repositories
- INFRAFRONTIER has detailed European archive services provided by their partners in this recent update
- The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), USA, is mounting a rescue mission to cryopreserve as many strains as possible. Researchers who need assistance with cryopreservation or need a sperm cryopreservation kit can contact JAX by email at jaxservices@jax.org or by phone 1.800.422.6423 (U.S.) or 1.207.288.5845 (international).
- The Mutant Mouse Resource & Research Center (MMRRC), USA, is still fully operating with reduced staff numbers.
- The Centre for Phenogenomics (TCP), Canada, is still offering sperm cryopreservation services and have increased their capacity for this since the beginning of the pandemic. Read more about the requirements for the service here and contact services@phenogenomics.ca for enquiries.
If you have any other enquiries about the status of our resources, please contact us at: mouse-helpdesk@ebi.ac.uk