Calif. animal scientists attacked

Written byBob Grant

| 2 min read

A house and car belonging to two University of California, Santa Cruz researchers were firebombed in the wee hours of Saturday (Aug 2) morning. The attacks occurred after linkurl:anti-animal research;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54494/ pamphlets listing the names and personal information of several UCSC researchers were linkurl:discovered;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54908/ in a Santa Cruz coffee shop last week. linkurl:David Feldheim,;http://biomedical.ucsc.edu/Feldheim.html who studies mammalian linkurl:brain development;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22128/ at UCSC, and his family were home Saturday morning when fire engulfed their front porch and door. Feldheim and his family - including two small children - escaped out a second story window using a fire ladder, Santa Cruz police told the linkurl:__Santa Cruz Sentinel__.;http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_10080054?source=email Feldheim studies the role of the Eph family of receptor linkurl:tyrosine kinases;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/54773/ and their ligands, the linkurl:ephrins,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/19418/ in the development of the mouse visual system. According to his lab linkurl:Web site,;http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/people/feldheim/ Feldheim uses "expression analysis, in vitro assays, viral introduction of genes into living mouse brains, and gene-knock out experiments," to elucidate how mouse brains linkurl:organize neural connections;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/19909/ associated with vision. Feldheim was one of the scientists listed on the pamphlets found last week. Police told the __Sentinel__ that the firebombing was being treated as an attempted homicide because Feldheim and his family were home at the time of the attack. Around the same time that Feldheim's house burned, another UCSC scientist's Volvo was lit afire in a driveway on the university's campus. Neither police nor UCSC officials revealed the researcher's field of study or name, but they did say that it was not listed on the pamphlet in which Feldheim's name and information appeared. According to the __Sentinel__, Santa Cruz police are considering the incidents acts of domestic terrorism and have turned the case over to federal investigators. "It's unconscionable that any reasonable person would consider this an acceptable tactic to get their point across," Santa Cruz Police Chief Howard Skerry said in a statement to the __Sentinel__. "We are working hard with the other agencies and committing all available resources to follow all possible leads. We urge anyone with information to come forward." A news linkurl:release;http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/messages/text.asp?pid=2348 from the university on Saturday condemning the attacks called them "acts of anti-science violence."

Meet the Author

Bob Grant

From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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