The Office of Research, Chulabhorn Research Institute, undertook a project for the improvement of the facility and animal care and use program of the Laboratory Animal Unit (LAU) under the Office of Research, by applying for the accreditation of the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC International) in Frederick, Maryland, USA. On October 15, 2008, an institutional committee, accordingly, was appointed to be responsible for the management of high quality facilities and programs for the care and use of laboratory animals in compliance with the international standards set forth by AAALAC International. The AAALAC accreditation program evaluates organizations that use animals in research, teaching or testing. Those that meet or excel AAALAC standards are awarded accreditation. The accreditation helps to raise the global benchmark for animal well-being in science. It also represents quality of good science as it promotes scientific validity. Striving to achieve the highest international standards of quality animal care and use, the Chulabhorn Research Institute’s IACUC had been engaging in overseeing the management for the care and use of the laboratory animals (i.e. rodents : rats and mice), and in proceeding with the work related to the accreditation requirements. These included, for example, written documents, the appointment of the Occupational Health and Safety Committee, the improvements of the animal facility building interior,...

The new study, in establishing the potential harmful effects of prenatal exposures, provides a possible method of screening populations to detect signs of arsenic contamination. Moreover, it is the first study to provide evidence of genome-wide changes resulting from prenatal exposure from any environmental contaminant. In a collaborative study, researchers at the Chulabhorn Research Institute (CRI) in Thailand and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have found that the children of mothers exposed to water supplies contaminated with arsenic during their pregnancies showed gene expression changes that could lead to cancer and other diseases later in life, even if the children themselves were never directly exposed to arsenic. The new study, in establishing the potential harmful effects of prenatal exposures, provides a possible method of screening populations to detect signs of arsenic contamination. Moreover, it is the first study to provide evidence of genome-wide changes resulting from prenatal exposure from any environmental contaminant. Arsenic contamination is a health concern worldwide with millions exposed to levels that exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) safety standard of 10 parts per billion (ppb). The element was classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and has been implicated in such diseases as vascular disorders and diabetes. The CRI research team included...