Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Studying potentially dangerous microbes in animal models of the disease they cause takes some extra considerations, as researchers and staff must perform their work under the careful restrictions of different biosafety level laboratories.
Researchers are building better barcodes and combining spatial and temporal tools to trace cell lineages from the earliest stages of animal development—and beyond.
As metagenomics advances, virus hunters are finding novel infections in colonies of laboratory mice across the world. What that means for scientific research and the animals themselves can depend on the mouse.
As COVID-19 continues to spread, the urgency of the hunt for effective therapeutics and vaccines has likewise grown. As with past outbreaks, animal models will be an important component of efforts to understand how the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes disease, and how best to defeat it.
To bridge brains and make the most of their nonhuman primate models, neuroscientists are setting standards, building tools, and starting to share their neuroimaging data.