Former Students Allege Mistreatment of Lab Animals at Calgary

The university is carrying out a review of animal handling in the now-closed lab of neuropsychologist Vedran Lovic.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Update (August 10): In an email to The Scientist, the University of Calgary disputes the claim published by CBC that concerns about animal treatment had been reported to the university’s animal care committee in mid-2017. “The University of Calgary’s Animal Care Committee never received a formal complaint in 2017 regarding the mistreatment of animals in the lab in question,” writes Philippe Reicher, associate vice president of strategic communications at the university.

An investigation is underway into the treatment of lab animals at the University of Calgary after several former students complained, CBC reported on Tuesday (August 7). Allegations center on the now-closed lab of neuropsychologist Vedran Lovic, and include reports of rodents regularly waking up mid-surgery in pain due to a lack of anesthetic.

“The University of Calgary is aware of concerns raised about operational procedures in a specific lab in the department of psychology,” Dru Marshall, provost and vice ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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