On the animal program and those who make it work

Keeping an animal research program going is no small feat—regardless of the size of the staff available to care for the animals and oversee the administrative details involved. This month, we have two Comments that focus on the people involved in the laboratory animal field.

Jordi Tremoleda and Angela Kerton walk us through the emotional burden and compassion fatigue that can come with caring for laboratory animals, with suggestions and resources for promoting the emotional resilience necessary to keep the people—and by extension, their animals—happy and mentally healthy. Christopher Keator describes some of the administrative struggles of a small animal research program, sharing his experiences in keeping such a program up and running when there is neither time nor staff to spare.

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Keeping SARS-CoV-2—and more—contained

To understand and eventually figure out how to prevent and/or treat infections with a microbial agent that has pathogenic potential, researchers deploy a number of different animal models. Such research, however, inherently comes with risks to those conducting it, and it necessarily requires some extra levels of caution to ensure that staff stay safe from the disease they are studying and that the microbes that cause it remain securely contained within the facility.

This month’s Technology Feature covers the basics of biocontainment, describing the different biosafety level laboratories in which infectious disease research takes place and exploring some of the extra challenges that come with the infectious disease research job.

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