ANDRZEJ KRAUZE
Something was wrong with Terry Hrubec’s mice. Normally, the Virginia Tech biologist’s colonies reproduced with ease, but all of a sudden in 2012 her mice were having a hard time getting pregnant. When they did, mothers frequently miscarried, had fetuses that died in utero, or died themselves during labor. The few mice that were born alive were riddled with birth defects. Hrubec, who studied birth defects for a living, couldn’t understand what was happening. If she couldn’t solve this mystery, her research would be ruined.
Across the country, Patricia Hunt, a geneticist at Washington State University, had been having similar problems. She had recently moved her lab from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, and the problems started soon after she arrived in Washington. Fertility ...
