PRIM&R is pleased to introduce this year’s member of the PRIM&R Blog Squad at the 2012 Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) Conference: Farah Moulvi. The Blog Squad is composed of PRIM&R members who are devoted to blogging live from our conferences. This is Farah’s second year serving as a member of the PRIM&R Blog Squad at PRIM&R’s annual IACUC Conference.

Whether it’s spring break, March Madness, Super Tuesday, Lent, or the upcoming 2012 IACUC Conference, a lot is happening in the month of March for IACUC stakeholders. Good thing multitasking is second nature for IACUC professionals.

So here I am, for round two, as a member of the PRIM&R Blog Squad covering the 2012 IACUC Conference for fellow attendees and those individuals unable to attend in person.

Attending the 2011 IACUC Conference last year was a true game changer. As IACUC and biosafety administrator at the University of South Florida, it was an invaluable experience that provided me a platform to network with experienced members of the IACUC community. As the 2012 IACUC Conference approaches, I look forward to networking with my peers once again. 

The theme of this year’s conference, Assuring Compliance While Facilitating Research: Keeping a Healthy Tension, is a perspective that all IACUC professionals can relate to and strive to accomplish. The conference offers a wide variety of sessions, workshops, panels, and forums to keep with this theme and meet the needs of a diverse body of attendees, including IACUC members, IACUC administrators, veterinarians, compliance officers, new IACUC staff, federal representatives, community members, and institutional officials.

The knowledge and experiences that have been available to me during the conference have aided me in making decisions and influencing my institution’s performance.  It is a reassuring when you meet like-minded animal care and use professionals and you realize that you are not alone and that you have the opportunity to learn from those Individuals who have already been through what you might be going through.  The individuals that I met at the 2011 IACUC Conference have truly become friends. They are a helpful, friendly, smart, and fun group of professionals who are committed to collaboration.

So I encourage all of you to engage with other animal care and use professionals in a collaborative activity or dialogue at the upcoming 2012 IACUC Conference.  In the precipitously evolving domain of animal care and use, teamwork and networking are the keys to ensuring the safe and ethical use of animals in the conduct of research.

As I blog from the conference lobby at the Boston Westin Waterfront Hotel (in my easy-to-spot  PRIM&R Blog Squad attire), please stop by and share your experiences, your opinions, and your interpretations of the conference’s events. With your help, I hope to share conference insights to the larger community through the power of blogging. Till the next blog—live from Boston!