Thursday, September 16, 2010

I was fortunate that I never had to work with animals as a student or post-doc. I have always felt like it was something I should know how to do for experience, but I worked on things that didn't have an animal model and the drafts of grants I helped with were for developing them.

My post-doc advisor, Tex, was the IACUC chair. He would spend more time dealing with animal issues than for stuff in our lab. As a consequence, he had to put the smackdown on people on a regular basis. I'm not talking bullshit stuff (I.e. wearing gowns) but serious shit, like breeding without permission.

At some point, he gets a call from someone, because someone posted an ad on craigslist for a chicken that needs a home. They mentioned in the ad that the chicken was hatched in a lab at the U, and if someone didn't take it, it was going to be killed. (It was for virus propagation).

So he has to go to this lab and tell these grad students that they had to kill the chicken. Which, I know, probably ate at him.

The thing about Tex, is that he is, if nothing, a sucker for animals. He's pretty much rescued every animal he has. This past winter, when he started feeding some stray cats, we all took bets on how long it was going to take before the cats ended up in his house (about 6 months, it ended up).

I know that there are some scientists that don't respect animals. I know that there are people that would rather we don't use them for experiments. I feel like the animals at my former institution are well taken care of because Tex is the head guy.


A side note: Blogging is going to be short and sweet for a while. I had a small accident on Saturday, which ended up with me getting 3 stitches on my index finger of my left hand. They are right on the inside, first joint space. While they are healing, I can only type a few hundred words before they start pulling.