"Save the mice" may sound like an animal rights slogan, but it is smart science to researchers in the Comparative Mouse Genomics Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. A major drawback of working with laboratory mice is having to kill the animals to measure endpoints such as tumor development and bone loss. Director Warren Ladiges, a veterinarian, and his colleagues are trying to save mice--and the cost of replacing them--by developing noninvasive techniques for whole-body imaging.
Radiochemist Kenneth Krohn created a mouse-sized positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. The project also uses equipment designed for humans: a Lorad MII X-ray mammography unit and a Norland dual-energy X-ray absorptio-metry (DEXA) system. Less than a minute of anesthesia gets the mice to stay still for their X-rays. For the PET scanning, which takes about an hour, Krohn says he uses the "lightest amount of inhaled anesthesia that you can possibly give ...
