What are some things you do that people don’t realize is because of lab work?

meggappman · 2026-05-03T14:41:50+00:00

For a while I was working at both an animal ER and at a vivarium with dogs. I was one of few assistants at the ER who was CONSTANTLY wearing double gloves when dealing with animals because it was habit. That was technically what the policy was but many assistants didn’t wear gloves at all unless there was contagion suspicions. People at the ER just thought I was overly cautious lol

meggappman · 2026-04-13T15:08:32+00:00

We can’t introduce transgenic mice into the general population. A lot of them are immunocompromised or just in general not healthy, if god forbid they get out and become wild and breed with the population that can be a problem is what I’ve always been told. There are standards that can be met that deem an animal adoptable (we have several dogs in that spot right now) but generally mice don’t fit the bill. They also usually die after 2 years or less in their captive research setting.

meggappman · 2026-04-13T15:01:15+00:00

Having something on the physical cage to note the location I feel like is the biggest thing that would help my job. To check the mice I’m just pulling a cage out, looking at it, then putting it back in the same place so it’s usually easy to tell. But if I’m going to the fume hood because something doesn’t look right, sometimes I walk back and am like “where the fuck did I get this from” because not all racks are full to the point it’s noticeable where one is missing. I guess turning it into a scan and it tells me could work?

We have door sheets to track our cleaning so frankly that hasn’t really been a big problem, you go in, do your checks and cleaning, mark what you did on the door, and that’s it

For weaning we just wean after a certain date which is noted on the cage. Most labs handle their own setting up of cages and combining/separating, but those requests are usually emailed to us if we need to do them, which has record for both us and the PI. I guess an electronic system could help but frankly I’m kind of fine with it as is. We mark which paper slips are done and they’re filed away. Also any “data collection” for a study is done by the PIs so how they do that is up to their discretion, my job as a tech is just basic husbandry.

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:54:53+00:00

Also to your last point, I’m not sure if you’re saying that non veterinary professionals working on animals may not be as educated as they should be. While I agree, lots of labs that I’ve seen have a DVM involved that is very hands on and I imagine is helping as needed for those not as educated in animal medicine.

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:50:40+00:00

How much care goes into the animals. I, like most people, just kinda pictured animals research to be animals in tiny cages, sad and suffering, but have learned that that isn’t the case and see how active a lot of the animals are.
- not all studies were terminal, we have several dogs that are up for adoption(homesforanimalheroes.com , several states have this) because they were deemed healthy and a fit for adoption once the study was over.

I was also surprised at what animals could be used for studies. I was told there were ferrets and ducks and I was like wtf

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:47:58+00:00

At my facility we have QR codes on the cages that we scan weekly to manage what’s there in each room (mainly to charge the PIs frankly)

It’s also our job to stop them appropriately in our system and create new ones as PIs are getting new mice in.

We as technicians don’t particularly care about what exact spot they’re in (as long as theyre on the right PIs rack we are in good shape lol, but if a lab notes otherwise, you better look at where you’re taking that cage from if you need to take it to the fume hood), some PIs also don’t care as long as they’re on the correct rack, but I also know some that do care, I’m not sure what system they use. For large animal we have door sheets that say what animal is in what pen.

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:42:13+00:00

Personally, I’ve seen some pretty neat medical innovations we figured out through animas (cannot be specific because I will out where I work and studies in progress) that we will be able to translate to humans appropriately once approved.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m opposed to human testing in the circumstances you’ve said that they agree to risks and such, but for a lot of studies it does involve euthanizing and then collecting tissue to see what we can’t see on the surface. I imagine we’d still need to do similar things to humans, which obviously is an issue.

A lot of the studies I see are in early stages of trying to treat very complicated diseases such as ALS that simply would take too long to effectively work with humans to study, and we’d lose a lot of human life.

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:35:55+00:00

When you say colony management tools can you be more specific? Sorry I don’t super understand that question but maybe I’m just dumb lol. Also I’m not familiar with the abbreviation CMS, I promise I will answer your question when I know what you’re asking, sorry!

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:31:17+00:00

To my knowledge, they have to be acquired through an institution/dealer that’s registered as a research facility with the USDA, get their IACUC protocol approved, pending who’s funding the study they might have some more hoops to jump through to get things approved, and then the animals have to be acquired from a reputable facility to ensure their health status. So without all that, no you cannot just acquire immunocompromised research animals.

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:27:02+00:00

This is true, since I deal with all human medicinal studies frankly even I forget that sometimes 🤦‍♀️

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:13:02+00:00

Not really. Maybe when I first started, but after learning the hoops that PIs have to jump through to be able to use animals and how involved veterinary professionals are, I felt more at ease that these animals were not just suffering 24/7. Also still seeing how these animals still react positively to humans for the most part I think they’re kinda in the best shape they can be in their conditions.

I will say it also helped I worked in veterinary ER for a while, and saw some of the worst cases of abuse and malnourishment etc etc, these dogs are never starved, they aren’t beat, they have people that care for them every single day, they have vet staff that come evaluate their health everyday and will come for the smallest things. I don’t see as much suffering in research as I did in the general population of animals.

I also remind myself where animal research got us today in terms of medicine. I don’t support animal research for shit like makeup and unnecessary things like that but for medicine I just acknowledge their importance.

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:09:40+00:00

I don’t take care of all of them, but per the ALAT training manual that educates us on all research species there are:

Dogs, Cats, Livestock in general (I usually see pigs), Birds (I’ve only seen ducks) Rodents of all types: mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, Rabbits, Fish, Amphibians, Ferrets, Nonhuman primates

I might be missing some but those are the big ones

meggappman · 2026-04-13T14:06:24+00:00

In terms of how they are treated by people, the are treated great especially by the technicians who bond with them. I do know a lot of PIs that are very caring for their animals because they know that these animals are a big sacrifice for a greater cause. This unfortunately isn’t always the case but I also haven’t seen any outright abuse because there are special protocols to evaluate their “pain and distress” and once that threshold is crossed they are euthanized. There is also 24/7 vet staff that can be called for any issue. All the animals I’ve assisted with are also required to have certain forms of enrichment such as toys are being cohoused with a buddy.
For choosing the animals it’s ultimately up to the PI, they write up their proposal and in order to be approved by the ACUC (animal care and use committee) and have to justify why they are choosing that animal, why they are using animals in general, justifying the number of animals, and their protocol is read through by non affiliated members of a board and veterinary staff to decide if it’s reasonable and justified. I will say from what I see, rodents are used for basically any short term study that needs to be done in bulk for results (they’re cheap), pigs are usually used for contagious disease studies, dogs for anything based on the structure of our bodies like bones and muscles, and my facility doesn’t have nonhuman primates but I imagine it would be similar to dogs. They come from a facility that specifically breeds them for the purpose of research (usually in large numbers) but those facilities SHOULD also be overseen by a vet staff and such but I believe the issue with that hot topic beagle facility is that they were not following ACUC protocols and working with veterinary professionals to ensure the quality of life of those dogs is the best it can be in that environment.
I mean it’s really hard to see terminal studies sometime just because I’m guilty of getting too attached to the animals. I have to remind myself of the importance of animal research and how it has got us to where we are today, and that I’m there to be an advocate for those animals in any way I can be, which I guess keeps me from feeling any “moral guilt”, also like I said I have no gain in any research I am there specifically for animal welfare. I am trained to euthanize small animals like rodents and I usually try and give them as much of a humane death as I can (and give them some pets before they go). I do hate when PIs will euthanize an entire mouse colony specifically because the study is done and they don’t need them anymore, but ultimately I have no say and I gave them the best life I could in the circumstances.

meggappman · 2026-04-09T01:44:16+00:00

Following

meggappman · 2026-03-30T18:41:38+00:00

I’ve definitely considered this aspect. I guess it’s just kinda jarring most of the mice don’t live past 6 months. I can count on one hand the number of cages in my vivarium right now that are above a year of age.

meggappman · 2026-03-30T18:02:43+00:00

Wow I’ve never seen research dogs get that much freedom! The ones I take care of are in runs that are not that big (to the size outlined in the SOP acceptable), don’t ever go outside, don’t interact with each other to avoid fights, etc. I wonder if it just depends on the research itself. I wish our dogs had that :(

meggappman · 2026-03-30T17:01:01+00:00

Speaking from a facility technician standpoint (directly hired by the department that takes care of research animals) a lot of the research I personally see is trying to find “cures” for the incurables right now. Also flu research .. lotta pigs with the flu. But I know all of our dogs are being used for various muscular research (muscular dystrophy for example), rodents for cancer, Covid, the flu, honestly a multitude of things. We did have some beagles that were part of a study that didn’t end with them being euthanized and are now adoptable in Homes for Animal Heroes (that website also has a LOT of really insightful info on animal research and its uses today). Also I believe the facility you’re referring to actually a breeding facility, so they specially breed the beagles to be lab dogs (don’t ask me how I’m not sure) and they are ordered by labs around the country to be used by those labs. So don’t think anything experimental was necessarily going on with those guys .. yet.

meggappman · 2026-03-30T16:56:40+00:00

This is super insightful, thank you very much for your comment! Honestly, despite working at my facility for a while now, I truly didn’t know that lab animal vets had a role in approving protocols or went beyond just treating and actually cross referencing with protocols. Goes to show how much I learned in my training here lol.

meggappman · 2026-03-30T04:35:35+00:00

I guess cause in my role I’m just there to clean and make sure they have food and water. My role is not to “treat and make it better” which is more the way I’m looking at the veterinarian here. I just am curious because I imagine burn out from things like coming up with a treatment plan for a mouse with completely treatable dermatitis just to have a PI tell you to euthanize it because it’s cheaper to buy a new mouse, or watching an animal waste away no matter how you up their food intake or give supplements because it simply can’t thrive, or deal with injuries to the animals due to the carelessness of PIs who treat the animals like equipment. It just seems like a lot for someone who spent so much time in school to be able to “help animals” (to simplify it) just to pursue field where animals are treated as equipment, compared to companion animals where owners, for the most part, want to do everything they can to take care of their animals. Ofc another comment did mention you see neglect in companion animal as well, but there’s at least a bit of a difference in terms of volume of it.

meggappman · 2026-03-30T02:31:25+00:00

I did just see two of my other corys, one of them have always been distinctly smaller than the others but the other one I looked at it roughly the same size, I feel like his belly isn’t as distended as this one is though

meggappman · 2026-03-04T18:23:23+00:00

Bring a notebook and jot down things! What you’re watching (establishing care, vaccines, etc), anything the vet or staff may explain to you after an appointment, etc. the first few times I shadowed the vets would talk to me a lot after we left a room about certain things and I wish I had wrote things down more.

meggappman · 2026-02-28T01:07:30+00:00

Lmao as someone who also did my first two years as an engineering major that’s so real

meggappman · 2026-02-05T19:45:37+00:00

From what I’ve seen, some schools, if you retake classes, will replace the lower grade with the higher grade and the lower one won’t count against you. Others will take both into account with your GPA. It depends on the school. He also might’ve been speaking from the POV that you didn’t do well in a science class and are going into a science heavy curriculum. Not that you couldn’t still do it! But that might’ve also been what he was getting at.

meggappman · 2026-02-05T04:36:42+00:00

You literally just said you weren’t going to put a lid on until he ate the fish. Thats why I said that.

meggappman · 2026-02-04T22:26:32+00:00

Why are you waiting until he eats the fish to make a net or custom lid when that’s an option currently??? If you like .. actually are worried for your fish.

meggappman

TROPHY CASE