At any given time, millions of lab mice are being used in research facilities nationwide. And yet nearly all of them can be connected back to a single source: The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where the modern lab mouse was invented.
What started as a research project aimed at understanding heredity is now a global business. Research on lab mice has led to more than two dozen Nobel prizes, helped save countless human lives, and has pushed science and medicine to new heights. But behind it all is a cost that’s rarely discussed outside of the ethics boards that determine how lab mice are used.
In this episode, we hear the story of how a leading eugenicist turned the humble mouse from a household pest into science’s number one guinea pig. Plus, we get a rare peek inside the Jackson Laboratory - where over 10,000 strains of lab mice DNA are kept cryogenically frozen.
Featuring Bethany Brookshire, Kristin Blanchette, Lon Cardon, Rachael Pelletier, Karen Rader, Nadia Rosenthal and Mark Wanner.
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LINKS
Karen Rader’s book, Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900-1955, is a definitive source on the birth of the lab mouse…
Curious to learn more about pests? Take a look at Bethany Brookshire’s book, Pests: How Humans Create Villains.
This piece from the New Yorker questions the assumptions and ethical choices scientists have made by using lab mice in sterilized lab environments.
In this New York Times essay, Brandon Keim explores how some ethicists want to reduce harm to animals used for research through a new model: repaying them.
CREDITS
Produced by Jeongyoon Han
Mixed by Taylor Quimby
Editing by Taylor Quimby, with help from Nate Hegyi, Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, and Felix Poon
Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie
Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Spring Gang, and El Flaco Collective.
Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
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