Just wanted to say hi to another virologist!

Sacrifice was the term my lab used, so that’s how I would refer to it. I kinda like sacrificed because it was a constant reminder to me that these mice were indeed sacrifices to improve our health and knowledge; of course, I would have treated them with respect either way because I love animals and it really did hurt…

Of course they would. Why do you think scientists are against not using chimps in research. They are the closest animal model we have to us. But with animal rights and people’s relationships to animals changing, continuing to use chimps, despite all of the similarities between us that would help with a myriad of…

Do not blame the scientists for not taking risks in research; blame the horrible funding situation that discourages new research because it is seen as risky as well as the political repercussions that come with doing such research. Considering the anti-science climate in politics and the slashes to grant funds from…

It’s not just costs, though that is a huge part of it. If you put a vaccine candidate in rhesus macaques first and it didn’t work, and then you put it in mice and it didn’t work, you would be the laughing stock of the field because you have to work from the bottom up. If it doesn’t work in mice, there is no point in…

Similarity of whatever system you are studying to humans. I’ve worked in several vaccine development labs. We use ferrets for influenza because they sneeze like we do, so we can better study flu transmission with them. We use guinea pigs for HSV-2 because they have spontaneous reactivation of the virus like we do.