After two decades of service to Vanderbilt Health, Jeanne Wallace, DVM, Vice President for Animal Care and Attending Veterinarian, will retire at the end of the academic year. A national search will be held to identify her successor.
Wallace, who is also a professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology (PM&I) and director of the Division of Comparative Medicine, was recruited to VUMC in 2006 from Wake Forest University where she was an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and served as director of the Animal Resources Program.
At Vanderbilt Health, Wallace recruited and built a team of veterinarians and operations managers to provide a high-quality animal care program to support researchers with Vanderbilt Health and Vanderbilt University.
She has led efforts to ensure Vanderbilt Health’s Animal Care facilities continued to be awarded full accreditation by the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC), a private, nonprofit organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science.
Vanderbilt was first accredited by AAALAC in 1967 and voluntarily undergoes reaccreditation every three years. By participating, Vanderbilt Health demonstrates its commitment to maintaining the highest standards of animal care while pursuing groundbreaking biomedical research.
Today, the Animal Care and Use Program (ACUP), which includes the Division of Animal Care, the Office of Animal Welfare Assurance (OAWA), and the ACUP Administrative Office, has grown to over 80 faculty and staff. There are now 10 veterinarians, including six board-certified in laboratory animal medicine and two board-certified in veterinary pathology.
With an emphasis on employee credentialing, the ACUP now includes over 18 staff who are certified by the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science and five OAWA personnel who are Certified Professionals in IACUC (The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) Administration. The Animal Care program currently supports the work of nearly 300 investigators described in over 550 IACUC protocols.
“I am grateful to Dr. Wallace for her service. Much of our research is reliant on the quality and integrity of our programs in Animal Care. Jeanne has done a tremendous job ensuring the safety and well-being of our research animals for the important work of our faculty and staff,” said John F. Manning Jr., PhD, MBA, Chief Operating Officer and Corporate Chief of Staff for Vanderbilt Health.
Shortly after joining Vanderbilt Health, Wallace worked with former PM&I chair Samuel Santoro, MD, PhD, to create the Division of Comparative Medicine. The Division now serves as the academic home for eight faculty (seven DVMs and one PhD) and two veterinary residents.
She articulated the need and then recruited a board-certified veterinary pathologist to provide comparative pathology services in support of researchers using animal models of disease, culminating in the creation of the Translational Pathology Shared Resource (TPSR), and the recruitment of a second board-certified veterinary pathologist. TPSR provides a wide array of pathology expertise and services for Vanderbilt researchers.
Wallace also developed a training program for veterinarians interested in the subspecialty of laboratory animal medicine. The residency program, recognized by the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM), has graduated 12 residents since its inception, and two of the program’s trainees received the prestigious Foster Award given annually to the person scoring highest on the ACLAM certifying exam.
She has served as an invited reviewer for the Journal of Visualized Experiments, American Journal of Primatology, Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal Science and the Journal of American Association of Laboratory Animal Science. She has been an active member and officer of the Research Triangle Branch and the Appalachian Branch of the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS). AALAS is the primary national organization of professionals (veterinarians and facility managers) who work in the animal research profession.
In 2021, she was elected by her peers to serve a four-year term as the vice president, president-elect, president and past president of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine.
“I am so appreciative of VUMC’s leadership, Drs. Balser, Manning and Pietenpol, for their long-standing support for the Animal Care program and their understanding of the importance of basic science and translational research to the tripartite mission of the institution,” Wallace said.
“My colleagues at other institutions are envious when they hear that I’ve been working with the same set of leaders for all of my 20 years at Vanderbilt, and even more so when they hear how supportive these leaders have been of me and the Animal Care program. I’m truly grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such an amazing group of leaders and co-workers.”
In retirement, Wallace said she looks forward to spending time with family, especially her grandchildren, gardening, traveling, riding horses and volunteering for a variety of Nashville charities.
