Category: News

An update on the RS2000 irradiator

20th of July

Dear Users,

Following up on the issue of the RS2000, we will replace the high tension cable and the X-Ray tube of the RS2000 this Thursday 23rd of July. The intervention will last a day and we will keep you updated on post-maintenance test so that you can come back to your normal routine on the irradiator. Sorry again for the inconvenience.

For people that didn’t move yet from the old Ceasium irradiator to the RS2000, please be aware that the RS-2000 is able to replace the Ceasium irradiator for mice and cells and that the irradiation on the RS-2000 is even higher and such shorter than to the Ceasium one. Moreover, it is also safer as it is not a permanent source of radiation. X-rays are emitted only when the intrument is ON.

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June 2020–

Dear IVIF users,

The RS2000 irradiator has been repaired but still requires the change of expensive parts. We can not guarantee any fault.

Indeed the reparation has been performed by ourselves as the technician in charge of the irradiator is still not able to travel.
The issue was the formation of an electrical arc at the cable linking the generator to the X-ray tube. We managed to clean up the cable and apply high tension grease to it for insulation. We could run a warm up and an exposure test. We are still waiting for the technician to come back to us to replace the defective parts.
Meanwhile and to play safe, we have set a threshold of 160 kV instead of 225 kV. This means that the dose rate is lower than usual ( 1.08 Gy/min and not 1.8 Gy/min). Please take this value into account for your future experiments. Please report to us any issue on the instrument and do not hesitate to ask for help or replacement on the Ceasium iraadiator

Thank you for your patience.

RS2000 out of order

Dear IVIF users,

Unfortunately the RS2000 irradiator showed an ARC fault again and as such we strongly discourage any further use. In case of very precious ongoing experiments we can make use of the cesium irradiator. Contact us for further information. 

Thank you for your understanding.

COVID-19 lockdown exit phase 1

Dear IVIF Users,

The IVIF on-site activity has been authorized by the Dean under certains restrictions and specific sanitary rules:

  1. Researchers willing to use the facility must notify their own PI and must receive an official authorization from the FBM.
  2. Do not use the facility if you are sick or if you have been in contact with a COVID-19 infected person in the last 14 days.
  3. Make your reservation on IRIS before arriving. Only the person that booked the instrument is allowed to use it.
  4. Remote work will remain the norm until further notice. As such, please let us know ahead of time (by Friday at noon for the following week and only after having received the authorization from the FBM) if you need us to be physically there to help you. Be aware that most instruments can be remotely controlled. If you have issues please contact us.
  5. Only one person at the time in each room, as such if you need assistance we will first try remotely and only if required we will come. In that case, for offices outside of the animal facility you will need to exit the room first after cleaning up the working zone.
  6. Our activity depends on the animal facility operation, so please make sure you are following the rules suggested by the animal care takers (contact francis.derouet@unil.ch for info). Please pay extra attention to save masks as much as possible (2/day/person).
  7. For analysis workstations located outside the animal facility, only one person at the time is allowed. Make sure you respect the following rules:

thank you for your understanding, stay safe,

Alexandre

Info COVID-19

Dear IVIF users,

We received instructions from the Dean’s office concerning our activities. We should not come on site unless emergency or help with on-going experiments that have to be completed ASAP. Do not hesitate to contact us by phone or by email if you need help or assistance.

We will be able to trouble shoot by phone or to connect to the acquisition PCs by teamviewer. If not enough, then  we can come on site. Our visit will  be only for this particular matter. Once a week we will double check consumables and make sure you are not running out of isoflurane. If you have a particular protocol to apply that requires us, please tell us in advance so we can plan to be there. We have been asked to keep track of each move we do on site.

Thank you for your understanding.

Stay safe.

Combo microCT/OI (Xray + Biolum/fluo)- Advanced training

Thanks to all the users participating to the advanced training on the combo optical imaging (Biolum/fluo) and microCT installed at the conventional animal facility CLE C. It was very instructive as it was very diverse, going from Fat pad in vivo imaging to lung nodules, bladder, Caecum and bones. We got a press release after that The University of Lausanne installs a high-end MILabs’ Duet Optical Imager in its core In-Vivo Imaging Laboratory