Losing labs to Hurricane Sandy and animal rights protestors

Maine.gov

For better or worse, the biological research community has become heavily reliant upon an animal that most of us would try to kill if we found it in our homes: the mouse. Mice have lots of good points. There's about a century's worth of genetic research on it to draw upon, there are sophisticated tools for pursuing genetic studies, and it's relatively closely related to us. Results from mice often translate into knowledge of human disease.

The downsides? Time and money. It can take years to create a custom genetic strain, and years more to breed in additional mutations to perform genetic tests. Mice are expensive to keep, since they have to be housed in a way that meets federal and local laws and kept in a controlled, germ-free environment. So, for a senior researcher, the lab's mouse collection can represent a lifetime of work—and a huge investment of grant money and institutional support.

This week brings two tales of entire mouse collections completely wiped out in less than a day: one by a natural disaster, one by human stupidity.