With my rent-a-surgeon service, I will visit your facility and perform the surgeries you need, when you need them. This gives you the flexibility of incorporating surgical models with any rat or mouse strain, no matter if they are sourced from commercial vendors or from in-house breeding.
In advance of the surgical session, I will provide thorough guidance and advice on preparation of the surgical unit, to ensure that the facility is adequately equipped for aseptic surgery and post-operative recovery.
This includes guidance on the organization of the surgical unit and preparing detailed lists of all required drugs, consumables, and equipment. If acquisition of additional equipment, like microscopes, ultra-fast autoclaves, anesthesia systems, or heatpads is required, I can provide recommendations on reliable and cost-effective products and solutions.
Full flexibility: The surgeries can be performed on any strain and at any point during your study allowing you to incorporate surgical models in studies requiring prior interventions with special diets, drug treatments, environmental challenges, or other variables.
Improved animal welfare: The stress of shipment from the vendor to your facility in the post-operative recovery period is eliminated, translating to better recovery and reduced mortality.
Higher success rates: For most surgical models, dropout rates increase with time since surgery. Catheters loose patency, transmitters run out of battery, etc. With in-house surgery, there is no need for acclimation after shipment in this time-critical phase, which shortens the time between surgery and experiment considerably. Combined with the improved recovery and reduced mortality, this leads to a substantial reduction in dropout rates.
Improved reproducibility: In addition to improving post-op recovery, in-house surgery removes the guess-work from your study, since you are in control of every step and have full traceability for every animal, allowing you to replicate and reproduce your experiment with confidence.
Examples of available surgical models are listed below. Don't hesitate to get in touch, if the model you need is not mentioned. I might already have experience with it, and if I don't, I have extensive experience with establishing and refining new surgical models.
In collaboration with Rene Remie Surgical Skills Centre, I organize customized training courses on rodent surgery in the client facility.
There is more to successful experimental surgery than mastering the steps of the surgical procedure. When performing batch surgeries for research, the ability to consistently maintain the highest standards for good surgical practice is paramount for achieving reproducible outcomes.
This requires careful consideration of many variables including maintenance of optimal aseptic conditions, appropriate anesthesia and analgesia, efficient workflows, and adequate conditions for post-operative recovery.
Efficient implementation: I will guide you on the acquisition of all the equipment, consumables and surgical instruments you will need to set up a complete surgical suite for aseptic rodent surgery, saving you the time and effort of identifying the requirements and exploring the market yourself.
Optimized surgical setup: In preparation for the course, we will work together to establish an optimized surgical setup and workflow in your facility. I will guide you on the ideal organization of the surgical unit, and develop optimized workflows adapted to the specific features and layout of your facility. This will enable you and your team to work efficiently through all the steps from preparation of the animal and surgeon to post-OP recovery, while maintaining proper separation of contaminated and aseptic areas.
Shortened learning curve: Adapting to a new environment is always tricky, and even more so while you are practicing a new skill. By learning the surgical techniques in your own facility, using the same instruments and equipment you will be using when the training is complete, your road to success will be shorter.
Arterial and Venous Catheters
Typically Carotid or Femoral artery and Jugular or Femoral vein, but other options available as well.
Ideal for vascular access, with arterial catheters being the best choice for sampling blood while venous catheters are very well suited for both acute and chronic IV administration.
Combination of arterial and venous catheters in a dual-catheter model enables endless possibilities for complex study designs requiring simultaneous infusion and blood sampling in freely moving animals.
Bile duct catheters
For acute studies, a single catheter inserted proximally in the common bile duct enables collection of substantial amounts of bile (>100 µl in mice) and measurement of biliary flow rates. For chronic studies, a double bile fistula maintains intact enterohepatic circulation while allowing for intermittent sampling of bile from the VAB.
Gastrointestinal Catheters
Ideal for stress-free infusion or repeated dosing directly in the stomach, small intestine, or colon. Stomach catheters are a very useful alternative to frequent oral gavage, or as a route of delivery for liquid diet in overfeeding models. This model is also very useful if oral administration is required while the animal is housed in a closed environment, like an indirect calorimetry system.
Intestinal catheters is an elegant method to bypass the stomach for "oral" delivery of experimental compounds that are sensitive to the harsh environment of the stomach.
Bladder catheter
With a bladder catheter connected to a VAB, sampling of urine has never been easier. If combined with a swivel and tether, continuous 24/7 urinary collection can be set up in the home cage.
Subcutaneous and Intraperitoneal catheters
Using a catheter connected to a VAB for SC or IP dosing is a great refinement for long-term studies requiring frequent repeated injections.
The surgery is quick and minimally invasive, and it will completely eliminate the need for restraint and the use of needles for dosing.
Lymphatic catheters
A catheter in the thoracic duct, which is externalized using a VAB on the back, provides easy and convenient access to repeated sampling of lymph fluid.
If you already know what surgical procedure you need, then great! Lets connect and start the conversation.
If you're not sure, then you can find inspiration below in the selection of the surgeries I can perform for you or provide training on.
The wide selection of catheter models is not a coincidence - having access to accurate, reliable, and repeated dosing, sampling, or both in freely moving animals is valuable in virtually any research area, and catheters are by far my most requested surgical modification.
All catheters can be externalized with a dorsal Vascular Access Button (VAB) providing a convenient, reliable, and safe way to repeatedly access the catheters without restraint of the animal. By connecting the VAB to a tether/swivel setup, the animals can move freely around the cage during the entire experiment.
In mice, up to 2 catheters can be externalized in a single VAB, while up to 4 catheters can be externalized with the larger rat VAB.
For all catheter models, I rely on the innovative products from Instech to provide you with a complete list of items you will need to set up your specific model, ensuring that everything including catheters, VAB, tethers, swivels, cage mounts, infusion lines, tubing connectors, and syringes is compatible.
Denervation
Denervation of tissues provide an elegant approach to manipulate central control of target tissue function, and to investigate regulation of tissue physiology through circulating factors. For example, in studies of rodent thermoregulation and adipose biology, denervation of interscapular brown adipose tissue switches off BAT thermogenesis and promotes a reprogramming of brown adipocytes to a more white adipocyte-like phenotype.
RFID Sensor Implantation
RFID temperature transponders provide long-term monitoring of body temperature. Surgical implantation and fixation allows for accurate placement for measurement of temperature in specific anatomical locations, like upper or lower abdominal cavity, brown adipose tissue, and peripheral muscles. Implantation of multiple transponders in each animal allows for detailed investigation of regional thermoregulation and adaptation.
Telemetry Device Implantation
Implantation of telemetry devices provides continuous undisturbed monitoring of key physiological parameters in freely moving rodents. Many different radiotransmitters are available for measuring blood glucose, blood pressure, ECG, EEG, EMG, body temperature, and activity. If combined with vascular catheters and a swivel/tether setup,
Ischemia/reperfusion
Ischemia/reperfusion models are useful for mechanistic studies of hypoxia-induced inflammation and oxidative stress and for investigating pharmacological interventions aimed at treating ischemia/reperfusion injury.
Common target tissues include the liver, kidneys and heart.
Partial Hepatectomy
Hepatectomies are useful in studies on liver failure or hepatic regeneration. The 2/3 partial hepatectomy, where ~70% of the liver is removed, is the most common model, but other resection volumes can be accommodated as well.
Liver Biopsy Collection
In studies on hepatic physiology and pathology, collection of small tissue biopsies is a very powerful technique to obtain paired pre/post samples for further analysis. Having multiple samples from the same animal allows for detailed mechanistic insights in the temporal development of disease, or the response to treatments and interventions targeting the liver.
Like humans, rodents are sensitive to perioperative infections and even subclinical infections, which are undetectable by visual inspection of the animals, can have serious consequences for the scientific outcomes of the study.
Consequently, adherence with good surgical practice and proper aseptic technique is as important in experimental surgery as it is in human surgery, and in addition to the skill level of the surgeon this is critically dependent on the environment where the surgery is performed.
In the clinic, surgical units are highly specialized environments designed specifically to minimize pathogen exposure to improve surgical outcomes. This is achieved through a combination of technological features, spatial organization, and carefully planned workflows that combine to effectively separate clean from contaminated areas and maintain the required level of aseptic conditions in the surgical suite.
Few research labs can accommodate, or afford, a full hospital-style surgical unit, but in most cases significant improvements can be achieved at a relatively low cost by optimizing an existing surgical setup. I have extensive experience in identifying major sources of contamination and with implementation of many of the design features and workflows used in the clinic to experimental surgery units, both in academic and industrial research organizations. Through careful consideration of unit organization and consistent use of appropriate procedures, equipment, and consumables, major sources of perioperative infection can be effectively eliminated.
I have previously been responsible for designing and building a state-of-the-art unit for experimental surgery, complete with separate prep and surgery rooms, air-pressure gradients, HEPA filtered ventilation, ultra-fast autoclaves, low-flow precision anesthesia, pedal-controlled microscopes, and many other features.
So, if you are refurbishing or establishing a new surgical facility, I can guide you on design, layout, features, and equipment in order to provide you with the best possible setup for your research needs.
I’m always excited to connect with like-minded professionals who are looking to advance preclinical in vivo research or need expert guidance on navigating the complexities of advanced in vivo methodologies.
