FDP Hosts New Animal Research Protocol Database

By: Galen Cobb
Thursday, February 13, 2025
A working group at the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP)—an association of federal agencies, research policy organizations, and academic research institutions—is introducing a new member-generated database for compliant animal research protocols. Aubrey Schoenleben, PhD, Director of Regulatory Affairs and External Partnerships at the University of Washington, and April Ripka, Business Process Analyst in the Office of Research Protections at Pennsylvania State University, presented on the Compliance Unit Standard Procedures (CUSP) database in a webinar organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) on February 6. 

The CUSP database provides a searchable repository of validated and compliant animal research procedures accessible to researchers at participating institutions. 

Protocols are added and managed by institutional representatives and display the institution that added them to the database. Institutional representatives have the option to hide the institutional affiliation for any procedure they deem sensitive. Institutional representatives may also endorse protocols uploaded by other institutions to indicate that the same or similar protocol is used there. 

Institutions are expected to curate their procedures and ensure procedures are up-to-date and validated. Each procedure is required to be reviewed and approved by the individual institution’s IACUC prior to submission to the CUSP database. Specific content will NOT be reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the FDP or regulatory agencies.

Individual researchers at participating institutions can access the database to search and bookmark procedures of interest. Any user may flag a procedure to alert the FDP working group to a potential issue. The quality control team will then follow-up to resolve the flagged issue. Individual researchers will not have access to add, edit, endorse, or archive procedures; those tasks are reserved for the institutional representatives.

The user interface is straightforward with protocols searchable by free word search, procedure type, and applicable species. Procedure records include procedure name, type, description, special considerations, potential adverse reactions, and keywords (used as search terms). 

Security has been a top consideration for the FDP working group and several measures have been put in place to ensure access is limited to institutional partners. To create an account, all researchers accessing the database must be registered and verified by their institutional representative. Once an account is created, logins require two-factor authentication. Future updates will include a single sign-on provider to manage account access, which will allow members to access the database with their existing institutional username and password. 

The CUSP project was created with input from federal agencies but is not formally endorsed or promoted by any federal agency.

If you are interested in creating a user account or have a question regarding the membership status of your organization, you may contact the FDP working group at cusp@thefdp.org.

More information regarding the CUSP database can be found at CUSP Participation - The Federal Demonstration Partnership.