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Rigor & Reproducibility

Guide to Rigor and Reproducibility for the Small Animal Imaging Facility

  1. Before your imaging study, please consult with core staff in the planning stage to determine which imaging modality would be the best for your study and other considerations to ensure rigor and repeatability of your study.  You can email bricsai@med.unc.edu to schedule a project meeting, or contact the core Director, Dr. Hong Yuan, yuanh@med.unc.edu
  2. Please always include CONTROLS AND STANDARDS in your imaging study.
  3. Discuss methods for determining a properly powered study (REPRODUCIBILITY).
  4. Discuss the relevant key biological variables associated with the study and imaging procedure.   Please refer to the following link for some NIH requirements
    1. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-17-068.html
    2. https://grants.nih.gov/reproducibility/faqs.htm#V
  1. For standard radiotracers ordered commercially, we will provide the batch and lot number for the study. For in-house produced radiotracers, we will ask the Radiochemistry core to provide the QC results.
  2. All our imaging systems are properly maintained with regular QC check and annual maintenance. Please let us know if you need to get the QC data of a specific system to verify imaging results.
  3. We want all imaging users to be properly trained and understand all the imaging parameters. If you need additional training, please contact our core staff.  We provide monthly optical imaging training and other trainings upon request.  Please see our Training page: https://www.med.unc.edu/bric/small-animal-imaging/training/
  4. Please always follow the Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) for all the imaging procedures. You can refer to our SOP website for more details.  https://www.med.unc.edu/bric/small-animal-imaging/sops/
  5. If imaging studies conducted in the facility result scientific publications, please acknowledge the Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA016086).  For studies using the new SuperArgus PET/CT scanner, please acknowledge the NIH S10 grant, S10 OD023611-01.  Please also acknowledge the imaging core and core staff for imaging support involved in your study.