Srinivas S. Rao D.V.M., Ph.D, M.B.A., Diplomate, ACVP

Description of Progam

Laboratory Animal Medicine Program provides all aspects of oversight and programmatic assistance to support teaching, training and research involving laboratory animals. The Program is fully AAALAC accredited and adheres to the following of the Federal regulations as published in the Animal Welfare Act (AWA); the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Guide); the Public Health Service Policy; and the U.S. Government Principles Regarding the Care and Use of Animals and NIH Manual 3040-2. Dr. Rao also serves as the Animal Program Director of VRC, NIH and helps coordinate the laboratory animal activities with the policies of NIH including Office of Animal Care and Use (OACU).

In assuring that the letter and the spirit of these regulatory requirements are met, the LAM provides a contemporary program that includes:

Veterinary Medical Care

• State-of-the-art husbandry, veterinary care, and management support of our colony animals
• Routine surveillance and quality assurance of vendor-and colony- produced animals
• Preventative medical care; surveillance, diagnosis, treatment and control of disease
• Anesthesia and analgesia
• Assistance with breeding colony development and maintenance
• Training of faculty and staff in the handling, humane care, and manipulation of research animals
• Consultation, collaboration, and professional assistance in animal model development
• Monitoring of in vivo maintained tumor and hybridoma tissues
• Assisting in the review process of the Animal Care and Use Protocol development

Veterinary Technical Services

• The Veterinary Care Unit can provide technical services to support the research needs of individuals who use animal models
• These services include: parenteral injection or oral administration of pharmaceutical agents and other experimental materials; blood and/or serum collection; surgical manipulations; anesthetic administration and other procedures as needed
• For those who wish to perform the procedures themselves but are inexperienced, training in these techniques is available from the Veterinary Care Unit at no charge

Husbandry Technical Services

• Provide a range of technical services including: mouse breeding management (mating, sex identification, weaning, pregnancy determination); mouse rederivation assistance
• autoclaved rodent caging and supplies
• Irradiation assistance to rodents and cells
• housing facilities for infectious animals (restrictions apply)
• rodent isolators (limited space)
• quarantine services
• procedure rooms for animal manipulations
• special feeding and/or watering requests; and animal transportation

Veterinary Pathology Consultation

Selected Publications

Shu Y, Winfrey S, Yang ZY, Xu L, Rao SS, Srivastava I, Barnett SW, Nabel GJ, Mascola JR. Efficient protein boosting after plasmid DNA or recombinant adenovirus immunization with HIV-1 vaccine constructs. Vaccine. 2007 Feb.; 25(8): 1398-408.

Srinivas S. Rao, Phillip Gomez, John R. Mascola, Vi Dang ,Georgia R. Krivulka, Faye Yu, Carol I. Lord, Ling Shen, Robert Bailer, Gary J. Nabel, Norman L. Letvin. Comparative Evaluation of Three Different Intramuscular Delivery Methods for DNA Immunization in a Nonhuman Primate Animal Model. Vaccine. 2006 Jan.; 24(3):367-73.

Brenchley JM, Price DA, Schacker TW, Asher TE, Silvestri G, Rao S, Kazzaz Z, Bornstein E, Lambotte O, Altmann D, Blazar BR, Rodriguez B, Teixeira-Johnson L, Landay A, Martin JN, Hecht FM, Picker LJ, Lederman MM, Deeks SG, Douek DC. Microbial translocation is a cause of systemic immune activation in chronic HIV infection. Nat Med. 2006 Dec.; 12(12):1365-1371.

Sun Y, Schmitz JE, Buzby AP, Barker BR, Rao SS, Xu L, Yang ZY, Mascola JR, Nabel GJ, Letvin NL. Virus-specific cellular immune correlates of survival in vaccinated monkeys after simian immunodeficiency virus challenge. J Virol. 2006 Nov.; 80(22): 10950-6.

Liu X, Lagenaur LA, Simpson DA, Essenmacher KP, Frazier-Parker CL, Liu Y, Tsai D, Rao SS, Hamer DH, Parks TP, Lee PP, Xu Q. Engineered vaginal lactobacillus strain for mucosal delivery of the human immunodeficiency virus inhibitor cyanovirin-N. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2006 Oct.; 50(10):3250-9.

Letvin NL, Mascola JR, Sun Y, Gorgone DA, Buzby AP, Xu L, Yang ZY, Chakrabarti B, Rao SS, Schmitz JE, Montefiori DC, Barker BR, Bookstein FL, Nabel GJ. Preserved CD4+ central memory T cells and survival in vaccinated SIV-challenged monkeys. Science. 2006 Jun.; 312(5779):1530-3.

Rao S, Hu S, McHugh L, Lueders K, Henry K, Zhao Q, Fekete RA, Kar S, Adhya S, Hamer DH. Toward a live microbial microbicide for HIV: commensal bacteria secreting an HIV fusion inhibitor peptide. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Aug.; 102(34):11993-8.

Smith JM, Rao SS, Stump KC, Benazzi C, Sarli G, DeTolla LJ. Mammary ductal carcinoma with comedo pattern in a rhesus macaque. Contemp Top Lab Anim Sci. 2005 Jul.; 44(4): 29-33. 

Jeffrey D. Hasday, Allen Garrison, Ishwar S. Singh, Theodore Standiford, Garrettson S. Ellis, Srinivas Rao, Ju-Ren He, Penny Rice, Mariah Frank, Simeon E. Goldblum, and Rose M. Viscardi. Febrile-Range Hyperthermia Augments Pulmonary Neutrophil Recruitment and Amplifies Pulmonary Oxygen Toxicity. Am J Pathol. 2003 Jun;162(6):2005-17.

Viscardi RM, Kaplan J, Lovchik JC, He JR, Hester L, Rao S, Hasday JD. Characterization of a murine model of Ureaplasma urealyticum pneumonia. Infect Immun. 2002 Oct; 70(10):5721-9.

Vigneulle RM, Rao S, Fasano A, MacVittie TJ. Structural and functional alterations of the gastrointestinal tract following radiation-induced injury in the rhesus monkey. Dig Dis Sci. 2002 Jul;47(7):1480-91.

Reid W, Sadowska M, Denaro F, Rao S, Foulke J Jr, Hayes N, Jones O, Doodnauth D, Davis H, Sill A, O'Driscoll P, Huso D, Fouts T, Lewis G, Hill M, Kamin-Lewis R, Wei C, Ray P, Gallo RC, Reitz M, Bryant J. An HIV-1 transgenic rat that develops HIV-related pathology and immunologic dysfunction. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001 Jul 31;98(16):9271-6.

Reid WC, Carmichael KP, Srinivas S, Bryant JL. Pathologic changes associated with use of tribromoethanol (avertin) in the Sprague Dawley rat. Lab Anim Sci. 1999 Dec;49(6):665-7. No abstract available.

Bunnell JE, Trigiani ER, Srinivas SR, Dumler JS. Development and distribution of pathologic lesions are related to immune status and tissue deposition of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis agent-infected cells in a murine model system. J Infect Dis. 1999 Aug;180(2):546-50.

Navarro-Garcia F, Eslava C, Villaseca JM, Lopez-Revilla R, Czeczulin JR, Srinivas S, Nataro JP, Cravioto A. In vitro effects of a high-molecular-weight heat-labile enterotoxin from enteroaggregative Escherichia coli. Infect Immun. 1998 Jul;66(7):3149-54.

Elliott SJ, Srinivas S, Albert MJ, Alam K, Robins-Browne RM, Gunzburg ST, Mee BJ, Chang BJ. Characterization of the roles of hemolysin and other toxins in enteropathy caused by alpha-hemolytic Escherichia coli linked to human diarrhea. Infect Immun. 1998 May;66(5):2040-51.

Xu M, Kumar D, Srinivas S, Detolla LJ, Yu SF, Stass SA, Mixson AJ. Parenteral gene therapy with p53 inhibits human breast tumors in vivo through a bystander mechanism without evidence of toxicity. Hum Gene Ther. 1997 Jan 20;8(2):177-85.

DeTolla LJ, Srinivas S, Whitaker BR, Andrews C, Hecker B, Kane AS, Reimschuessel R. Guidelines for the Care and Use of Fish in Research. ILAR J. 1995;37(4):159-173. No abstract available.

Note: Srinivas S. Rao was previously S. Srinivas

Vi Dang reports to Dr. Rao and serves currently as the Animal Resources Program Coordinator. In addition to coordinating several activities of the LAM program, Mr. Dang also serves as the ACUC coordinator. He also is the Facility Manager of the LAM, VRC and helps in the oversight of the contract operating the LAM vivarium.