To ensure that a new vaccine is safe and effective, researchers often test it on mice. But here's the thing: mice can't get sick from the coronavirus. That's why one lab is breeding a new generation of mice that can.
Aaron Boothroyd/The Jackson Laboratory
In order to test and ensure that vaccines are safe and effective, researchers typically conduct experiments on animals, usually mice. Though some labs are experimenting with ferrets and monkeys for this virus, mice are cheap and plentiful. The problem is that the genetically altered mice that researchers need have been on ice for the past few years, says Cat Lutz, senior director of the Jackson Laboratory Mouse Repository in Bar Harbor, Maine.hide captionJennifer L. Torrance/The Jackson Laboratory
Lutz's lab reached out to Dr. Stanley Perlman, a coronavirus specialist at the University of Iowa's medical school. He sent Lutz his lab's unused frozen sperm, which was used to impregnate mice in the Jackson labs. The first batch of new mice was born March 2."Gestation time is about three weeks and then it takes another three weeks for the mice to reach adulthood and be weaned from their mom," Lutz says.
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