Elements of a Congruency Review
The reviewer will verify congruence between the grant proposal and corresponding IACUC approved protocol(s) in the following specific areas. The congruency reviewer may request more information or clarification from the PI during the review.
- General scope of the work (disease area, target organs, biological targets, etc.)
- Species (including strain[s], if the conduct of the proposed study or the disease model is dependent on the strain
- Approximate numbers of animals
- Experimental procedures and endpoints
- Agents (experimental and therapeutic)
- Euthanasia method
A reasonable matching description of the above areas in the grant proposal and IACUC-approved protocol will be regarded as congruence.
If there are live animal studies conducted by external collaborator(s) or service providers (e.g., antibody production), an off-site protocol is required for UMass Chan IACUC review. All external collaborators or vendors must have IACUC approvals from NIH-assured entities and should be listed in the UMass Chan animal study protocol in Form J or in a stand-alone off-site protocol.