About EMMA - Courses

November 9-14, 2003

Cryopreservation of mouse germplasm

Ancillary technical course:

Embryo Handling Supplement

"A. Buzzati-Traverso" Campus, Monterotondo Scalo, Rome, Italy

The Istituto di Biologia Cellulare of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche-"A. Buzzati-Traverso" Campus and The Jackson Laboratory offer a comprehensive course on cryopreservation of mouse embryos, sperm and ovaries plus a supplementary course on embryo handling for those who need to learn ancillary techniques. European participants can apply for financial support provided by the European Union's Framework Programme 5 through the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA) project.

Cryopreservation course

The cryopreservation course is offered to teach methods in cryopreservation for banking of research strains of mice. Several methods of cryopreservation are now available and because no single method is adequate for all the various strains of mice being developed, a variety of methods are taught. The course is designed primarily as a "hands-on" laboratory program in which participants will learn techniques for the cryopreservation of cleavage-stage embryos, spermatozoa, and ovaries. Techniques include:

a) Embryo and ovary "slow" equilibrium freezing to -80°C in plastic cryotubes.

b) Embryo "two-step" equilibrium freezing to -35°C in plastic straws.

c) Embryo non-equilibrium "ultra-rapid" cooling or "vitrification" in straws without the use of a controlled rate freezer.

d) Sperm freezing in cryotubes without the use of a controlled rate freezer and recovery of frozen sperm by in vitro fertilization. e) Equilibrium freezing to -80°C in plastic cryotubes. In addition, general principles of cryobiology, development of inventory databases for individual programs, and adaptation of long-term storage systems and cryogenic equipment for different situations will be discussed.