Animals Start New Lives After Time in the Lab

Scientists and others have been opening their homes to research animals after the studies conclude, with legislation in some states now mandating adoption.

| 5 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
5:00
Share

Venus and Mercury, two Swedish Briard dogs, found a loving home with Penn researchers Jean Bennett and Albert Maguire after participating in a study to develop a gene therapy for a human form of blindness.PEGGY PETERSON PHOTOGRAPHYLouie is a redbone coonhound. He’s almost four years old and loves to play and chew on bones, just like most other dogs. But unlike his neighborhood pals, Louie’s back story is pretty unique. He used to live in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and was part of a study to examine the physiology of asthma.

“He was such a nice dog,” says Bob Adams, head of research animal resources at JHU. The pup was a little over a year old when his time in the asthma study was over. “I took a picture of him and sent it to my wife and said, ‘What do you think?’ and she said, ‘Sure.’ . . . So I adopted Louie.”

Louie’s move from the lab to the home life is an example of a long-standing tradition of adoption among scientists and vets, who often try to rehome research animals once the lab work is done.

JHU’s first lab animal was adopted in 1983. “At least, that’s the earliest one I have paperwork for,” Adams says. “We’ve been doing this for a long ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

  • Ashley Yeager

    Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.

Share
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo
New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

Sino

Products

Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide

Explore a Concise Guide to Optimizing Viral Transduction

A Visual Guide to Lentiviral Gene Delivery

Takara Bio
Inventia Life Science

Inventia Life Science Launches RASTRUM™ Allegro to Revolutionize High-Throughput 3D Cell Culture for Drug Discovery and Disease Research

An illustration of differently shaped viruses.

Detecting Novel Viruses Using a Comprehensive Enrichment Panel

Twist Bio