Getting Started

Contact Godley Snell’s Assistant Director for a detailed cost estimate for your proposed study. Funds to cover the entire amount of the study must be identified prior to the review of project materials by the IACUC. The GSRC staff will meet with you in your project’s planning stage to ensure project feasibility. GSRC animal care and service rates can be found on the University's Controller's website.

All research and teaching projects involving the use of live vertebrate animals must be approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) prior to procurement of animals for any study. The process starts with a Principal Investigator submitting an Animal Use Protocol (AUP) to the Committee for review. For information on the submission and review process, visit the Clemson Office of Research Compliance website. When the AUP approval process is complete, the Office of Research Compliance will notify GSRC of the approval and will forward all documents associated with the AUP.

Researchers are responsible for obtaining a SCDHEC registration and DEA license for controlled substances prior to the use of any of these materials in the course of their research. Contact Occupational and Environmental Safety for assistance with the registraion and licensure process. You will not be able to acquire animals or schedule procedures if you are not properly registered or licensed if your project involved these substances.

After the IACUC has reviewed and approved your AUP, animals can be procured for the project. No orders will be placed for animals without an approved AUP, no exceptions.  AUPs that are pending in the review process are not considered approved and animals will not be ordered. To place an animal order, submit an Animal Order Request in iLab using the following procedure:

1. Log into iLab.
2. At the top right, click on the “Request Services” tab.
3. In this tab under the Service Request section, click the “request service” button with the green arrow next to “Animal Order Request.”
4. The Animal Order Request form should appear. Complete all fields marked with a red star within the request form. *Please be as specific as possible with all requests.
5. Complete the payment information section. Animal orders will not be placed unless we have an active chart string to charge them to.
6. Click “submit request to core” to submit your request to GSRC.
7. Once GSRC receives and reviews your request, we will be in contact with you with any questions and order confirmations.

The GSRC staff will assist with any experimental procedures, but we encourage Principal Investigators and graduate students to perform procedures independently. Proficiency must be demonstrated prior to independent work. We will provide training for any experimental procedure on an approved AUP to develop the husbandry and technical skills of your research team. 

If you have an approved Animal Use Protocol, you can schedule procedures described in that AUP by completing and submitting a Service Request Form through the iLab Organizer. We encourage researchers to schedule procedures before or at the time of animal procurement to ensure resource availability. We will make efforts to accommodate all requests but reserve the right to deny requests made with little or no lead time.