[biocurious] Animals

[Tristan Eversole]

(Should I be putting [biocurious] in the subject fields of these emails?)

As sort of a follow-on to the email about chemicals:

Where are we at on the animals/plants/fungi front? Could I take in Daphnia/Artemia/Drosophila/Triops/Trichoplax? If found a cool terrestrial flatworm, could I put it in a jar and show it to people(*)? I have stored some dandelion seeds from backyard which, while probably the same species**, exhibit wildly different phenotypes; could I grow 'em there or would I have to do it here?

I'm not asking because I plan on turning the lab into some kind of crustacean menagerie; these are hypotheticals. I'm just unclear what kinds of legal restrictions exist for, say, the keeping of brine shrimp. I can't imagine that it's tightly regulated, but you never know, do you?

--Tristan

*Sure, they BELONG in places like Borneo, but they made it out here. Really. Here's what one looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_aSR5FK0Y . And if you think that's weird, you should see a terrestrial nemertean.

**Dandelion taxonomy is screwy, so maybe not, or maybe it all depends on how you count.

[Eri Gentry]

"[biocurious]" automatically precedes user-generated subject lines for this group

@erigentry | BioCurious? http://groups.google.com/group/biocurious

[Louis Hom]

I think there are probably 2 flavors of regulations that apply -- 1)
due to animal welfare regulations, we need to steer clear of
vertebrate species, and 2) rules regarding health and safety mean that
we should avoid human pathogens, carriers of human pathogens, and
significant/exotic agricultural pests too

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 10:23 PM, Tristan Eversole
<custome...@trioptimum.com> wrote:

[Tristan Eversole]

Roger. "No vertebrates" sounds like a very good rule. (Hopefully nobody will confuse the issue by trying to keep some lancelets. :) ) "No human pathogens or carriers of human pathogens" just rules out lice, fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, and some more exotic things like tsetse flies or hookworm-- critters that nobody will ever want to get anywhere near. "No significant/exotic agricultural pests" is the only one that could give us any trouble, because it's not always clear which things are pests. In the examples I posed, only the terrestrial flatworm could be a problem: they're invasives that munch on native earthworms. But I'd wager they're difficult to keep alive in captivity anyhow.

Heather could probably shed some light on this issue...

--T.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Eri Gentry <sap.v...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "[biocurious]" automatically precedes user-generated subject lines for this
> group

Not always - look at my emails regarding co-working yesterday and
today. I think it depends whether you email
biocu...@googlegroups.com directly, or start a new post on the
google group.

Patrik

[Dan Wright]

This does not distinguish between spine and spineless.

 Although there are probably

some federal lab animal regs that do

California Penal Code 597

(a) Except as provided in subdivision (c) of this section or
Section 599c, every person who maliciously and intentionally maims,
mutilates, tortures, or wounds a living animal, or maliciously and
intentionally kills an animal, is guilty of an offense punishable by
imprisonment in the state prison, or by a fine of not more than
twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and
imprisonment, or, alternatively, by imprisonment in a county jail for
not more than one year, or by a fine of not more than twenty
thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.
   (b) Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (a) or (c), every
person who overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks,
tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, drink, or
shelter, cruelly beats, mutilates, or cruelly kills any animal, or
causes or procures any animal to be so overdriven, overloaded, driven
when overloaded, overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of
necessary sustenance, drink, shelter, or to be cruelly beaten,
mutilated, or cruelly killed; and whoever, having the charge or
custody of any animal, either as owner or otherwise, subjects any
animal to needless suffering, or inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon
the animal, or in any manner abuses any animal, or fails to provide
the animal with proper food, drink, or shelter or protection from the
weather, or who drives, rides, or otherwise uses the animal when
unfit for labor, is, for every such offense, guilty of a crime
punishable as a misdemeanor or as a felony or alternatively
punishable as a misdemeanor or a felony and by a fine of not more
than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000).
   (c) Every person who maliciously and intentionally maims,
mutilates, or tortures any mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish
as described in subdivision (d), is guilty of an offense punishable
by imprisonment in the state prison, or by a fine of not more than
twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and
imprisonment, or, alternatively, by imprisonment in the county jail
for not more than one year, by a fine of not more than twenty
thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.
   (d) Subdivision (c) applies to any mammal, bird, reptile,
amphibian, or fish which is a creature described as follows:
   (1) Endangered species or threatened species as described in
Chapter 1.5 (commencing with Section 2050) of Division 3 of the Fish
and Game Code.
   (2) Fully protected birds described in Section 3511 of the Fish
and Game Code.
   (3) Fully protected mammals described in Chapter 8 (commencing
with Section 4700) of Part 3 of Division 4 of the Fish and Game Code.
   (4) Fully protected reptiles and amphibians described in Chapter 2
(commencing with Section 5050) of Division 5 of the Fish and Game
Code.
   (5) Fully protected fish as described in Section 5515 of the Fish
and Game Code.
   This subdivision does not supersede or affect any provisions of
law relating to taking of the described species, including, but not
limited to, Section 12008 of the Fish and Game Code.
   (e) For the purposes of subdivision (c), each act of malicious and
intentional maiming, mutilating, or torturing a separate specimen of
a creature described in subdivision (d) is a separate offense. If
any person is charged with a violation of subdivision (c), the
proceedings shall be subject to Section 12157 of the Fish and Game
Code.
   (f) (1) Upon the conviction of a person charged with a violation
of this section by causing or permitting an act of cruelty, as
defined in Section 599b, all animals lawfully seized and impounded
with respect to the violation by a peace officer, officer of a humane
society, or officer of a pound or animal regulation department of a
public agency shall be adjudged by the court to be forfeited and
shall thereupon be awarded to the impounding officer for proper
disposition. A person convicted of a violation of this section by
causing or permitting an act of cruelty, as defined in Section 599b,
shall be liable to the impounding officer for all costs of
impoundment from the time of seizure to the time of proper
disposition.
   (2) Mandatory seizure or impoundment shall not apply to animals in
properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations
performed under the authority of the faculty of a regularly
incorporated medical college or university of this state.
   (g) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if a defendant is
granted probation for a conviction under this section, the court
shall order the defendant to pay for, and successfully complete,
counseling, as determined by the court, designed to evaluate and
treat behavior or conduct disorders. If the court finds that the
defendant is financially unable to pay for that counseling, the court
may develop a sliding fee schedule based upon the defendant's
ability to pay. An indigent defendant may negotiate a deferred
payment schedule, but shall pay a nominal fee if the defendant has
the ability to pay the nominal fee. County mental health departments
or Medi-Cal shall be responsible for the costs of counseling required
by this section only for those persons who meet the medical
necessity criteria for mental health managed care pursuant to Section
1830.205 of Title 7 of the California Code of Regulations or the
targeted population criteria specified in Section 5600.3 of the
Welfare and Institutions Code. The counseling specified in this
subdivision shall be in addition to any other terms and conditions of
probation, including any term of imprisonment and any fine. This
provision specifies a mandatory additional term of probation and is
not to be utilized as an alternative in lieu of imprisonment in the
state prison or county jail when such a sentence is otherwise
appropriate. If the court does not order custody as a condition of
probation for a conviction under this section, the court shall
specify on the court record the reason or reasons for not ordering
custody. This subdivision shall not apply to cases involving police
dogs or horses as described in Section 600.

Sent from my iPhone

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 11:26 PM, Tristan Eversole
<custome...@trioptimum.com> wrote:
> Roger. "No vertebrates" sounds like a very good rule.

How about fish? It'd be nice to have a small aquarium with some of the
fluorescent fish.

Patrik

[Tristan Eversole]

You can't get GloFish in California, it seems, as a result of a law intended to ban engineered salmon. The state has allowed for an exception to be made for the GloFish, but the company that sells them hasn't done the tests needed to actually take advantage of the exception.

Basically, I think it'd be a bad idea to be cutting them up. Simply keeping a fish tank is probably fine. I guess "no vertebrates" was a bit hasty; they just aren't on my mind often, so I didn't think it through.

Tristan

[Josh Perfetto]

I think there are some good comments in this thread, but want to point out that we want to avoid worrying about hypotheticals at this point. While we may have to say no from time to time, we'll work with members to find a way to support the types of work they want to do if we can. We have quite a backlog of work already though, so need to prioritize supporting what members actually want to do today.

When we look at any capability, there are a few things we need to look at:

- Personal safety implications

- Operational procedures

- Equipment required

- Protection of other experiments

- Legal regulations

- Permits required

That's a lot of work, so while we'd love to do everything, we need to prioritize.

-Josh

[Tristan Eversole]

Ah, yeah, sorry for bothering you about that. I'm pretty interested in doing something with Trichoplax or Daphnia, and I could definitely grow the dandelions, but right now I don't have a specific project in mind, and couldn't remotely afford my own Taq/dNTPs/Sybr Green etc. anyway, so it doesn't fall under the category of "what members actually want to do today". I mainly asked because the "no animals" rule from orientation (dimly recalled) was weighing heavily on my mind. Sorry again-- I won't bring it up again 'til I have a specific project and the resources to carry it out.

--T.

[kathryn hedges]

Thanks for the clarification, Josh.

-Kathryn

[kathryn hedges]

It hadn't occurred to me before that BioCurious doesn't fall into just the lab animal ethics/care guidelines, since we are not a university or med school. I wonder what the minimum is to qualify for that?

Regarding lab animal regs, the short version is that you need IRB approval to work on vertebrates but not invertebrates. I think IRB = Internal Review Board, anyhow, it's a committee at the institution that reviews proposals to make sure they are ethical. (I think it would be awesome if we could have an IRB to approve any human studies ala Quantified Self so the results would be publishable; reputable journals require this.)

Kathryn

[Jason Bobe]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 3:50 PM, kathryn hedges <biola...@gmail.com> wrote:

It hadn't occurred to me before that BioCurious doesn't fall into just the lab animal ethics/care guidelines, since we are not a university or med school. I wonder what the minimum is to qualify for that?

Regarding lab animal regs, the short version is that you need IRB approval to work on vertebrates but not invertebrates. I think IRB = Internal Review Board, anyhow, it's a committee at the institution that reviews proposals to make sure they are ethical. (I think it would be awesome if we could have an IRB to approve any human studies ala Quantified Self so the results would be publishable; reputable journals require this.)

There are IRB's available for researchers outside of universities or other settings who desire or require IRB oversight services.  See Western IRB:

http://www.wirb.com/

And, as you say, journals require that published articles involving human subjects include IRB oversight.  So, when 23andMe published in PLoS Genetics, they had to show IRB approval (or IRB exemption).  There is a backstory here on how it all worked out in the end:

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1000965

Jason

[kathryn hedges]

Jason,

Thanks for the info!

Kathryn

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Great - I didn't know that was an option.

There's a tradeoff between publishability and higher overhead and red
tape, of course. I suspect that in many cases it may be easier to redo
a study with IRB blessing once you've convinced yourself it's worth
doing so based on a smaller non-IRB study.

I'd hate to see all the grass-roots Quantified Self studies suddenly
required to follow strict IRB rules, for example.

Patrik

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 6:28 PM, Jason Bobe <jaso...@gmail.com> wrote:

[kathryn hedges]

Which rules did you think were particularly likely to get in the way, Patrik?

Kathryn

[Jason Bobe]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Patrik D'haeseleer <pat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Great - I didn't know that was an option.

There's a tradeoff between publishability and higher overhead and red
tape, of course. I suspect that in many cases it may be easier to redo
a study with IRB blessing once you've convinced yourself it's worth
doing so based on a smaller non-IRB study.

I'd hate to see all the grass-roots Quantified Self studies suddenly
required to follow strict IRB rules, for example.

agreed.  I think Joe might be trying to put together a panel on this topic for OSS.  Its a great one, especially with growth of QS and grass roots research.  These are positive developments.

 

jason

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:25 PM, kathryn hedges <biola...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Which rules did you think were particularly likely to get in the way,
> Patrik?

I was thinking more of human subjects voluntarily participating in a
study and waiving privacy rights.

Even in the butter mind experiment, for example: the person who winds
up doing worst on the daily tests may not want the world to know that
they're two sigma worse at solving simple math questions than the rest
of the participants.

Patrik

[Eri Gentry]

Some studies at Genomera may soon be employing external IRBs. For the most part, you can't get published without one. The notable exception I'm aware of is the Journal of Participatory Medicine. There is also the option to publish online at PLoS Currents.

I've heard a bit of discussion about a community review board but haven't seen any action in this direction.

@erigentry | BioCurious? http://groups.google.com/group/biocurious

[Louis Hom]

But isn't the point of an IRB to ensure that participants are
informed, aren't being coerced, and that their privacy and well being
are protected?

Also, one aspect of IRBs that is often overlooked is that they not
only protect the subjects, but the researchers too, by documenting
that appropriate and approved measures have been put into place. That
way, if for some reason there's a conflict later on, it's not just "he
said/she said".

Lou

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Patrik D'haeseleer <pat...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Teach Outside]

IRBs are for humans and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees
(IACUCs) are the equivalent for animals, and they only are
traditionally only concerned with ectothermic vertebrates. The Animal
Welfare Act is the bible for such use:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/downloads/awa/awa.pdf

Whether BioCurious is using humans, animals, or just plain chemicals
it seems like it would be a good idea to have an internal peer review
system in place for proposed projects.

On Oct 5, 8:51 pm, Louis Hom <lou...@gmail.com> wrote:
> But isn't the point of an IRB to ensure that participants are
> informed, aren't being coerced, and that their privacy and well being
> are protected?
>
> Also, one aspect of IRBs that is often overlooked is that they not
> only protect the subjects, but the researchers too, by documenting
> that appropriate and approved measures have been put into place.  That
> way, if for some reason there's a conflict later on, it's not just "he
> said/she said".
>
> Lou
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Patrik D'haeseleer <patr...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 9:35 PM, Teach Outside <teacho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> (IACUCs) are the equivalent for animals, and they only are
> traditionally only concerned with ectothermic vertebrates.

Do you mean endothermic (aka "warm-blooded") vertebrates? Either way,
that seems like an odd limitation. So fish, amphibians and reptiles
are typically exempt from IACUC review?

And yes, I completely agree that it makes 100% sense to have an
internal review system, even if a formal IRB review may be too
heavyweight in some circumstances.

Patrik

[Joseph Jackson]

Interesting discussions on here.  I was hoping to address the future of IRB's at the Open Science Summit but given time constraints, we can't cover everything (though we try!).  We have several talks related to the future of trials and distributed and I hope to expand this in the future.  The work of John Ionandis is especially interesting...he's documented that even the most well established medical research is often reversed.  

One thing to bear in mind is that BioCurious made a decision not to do any sort of editorial review of member projects.  We're adhering to safety guidelines and working to ensure that all activities are safe according to the scope of materials and chemicals used.  We are not enforcing a review process that makes any judgments whatsoever as to the worth, scientific merits, or other value of the work that people will do.  This was a board level decision that we are not in the business of passing judgement on citizen science projects, nor do we want to go case by case reviewing the kinds of work that people want to do.  The best way to handle this we felt, is by defining safety conditions within which everyone has the freedom to pursue what interests them.  

  So if members come and do an incredibly (from our perspective) intellectually stupid, silly, or even, dare I say it offensive project (maybe some kind of bioart that makes a political statement), as long as it does not pose any issues from materials safety standpoint, we're not going to restrict that.  Now, of course let's all use common sense.  Disruptive activities that affect the well-being of the community or otherwise detract from the working environment, would fall under our membership agreement.  

All of this and more can be explored in future community wide sessions such as the upcoming state of the union meeting.  However, this is not an "institutional" lab by conventional standards and replicating an IRB not only is rather ironic and even paradoxical, but it's not really within the mission of the organization...which is to enable research, never to engage in picking and choosing at a project level.  So yes to boundaries based on responsible practices and principles, no to any kind of cherry picking approvals of particular research projects or engaging in editorializing.  

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 9:35 PM, Teach Outside <teacho...@gmail.com> wrote:

[kathryn hedges]

Not sure where you get the idea that IRBs judge which projects are worthy; if I recall correctly what my mentor at the University told me, they ensure projects are safe and ethical. Seems those are pretty much the goals of our community, right?

Kathryn

[Dan Wright]

That is the goal. In practice sometimes not so much. Loma Linda Uni. fed people some type of perchlorate (rocket fuel) paid for by the rocket fuel company that polluted the ground water. These poor saps (victims) thought they were doing a medical trial but were paid $1000. Press found out (like Tuskeegee) and the study was shut down. 

I have much more faith in Eri and Joe than any IRB. No need to formalize the process. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Joseph Jackson]

Certainly, just trying to be clear that we have never intended to set up a process where members must individually obtain pre- approval to do their projects.  We settled on white-listing certain categories of activities.

Josh is still working hard to update all the safety procedures and increase the capabilities of the lab and scope of experiments that can be supported.  However, as far as I have always understood things, creating a mechanism whereby a committee of some sort has to sign off on proposals is beyond the scope of our own time and resource constraints and is also not the level we deemed appropriate for our organization to be operating at.  

We should definitely take all of this up in broader discussion but it is really important to think about the differences between the function of a community lab and the way that institutional science operates.  

It isn't immediately clear to me that we must impose any sort of peer review.  That position actually brings in all kinds of unstated assumptions about the scientific process, the goals of the project (is it a requirement because the person doing it is trying to publish the work?), etc etc.  

If, as a paying member of BioCurious in good standing and abiding by the terms of the membership agreement, I want to come in and work on some idea purely for my own curiosity or gratification, and I am breaking no laws, nor engaging in any activity with safety implications, it is not actually our place to impose peer review on the independent work that individual engages in while using their own time and money.  They may later face that hurdle in attempting to get their findings recognized by the global scientific community, but that is different from our review board deliberating on their proposal.  A simple checklist of reagents used in the experiment, assurance of responsible technique (covered in our training requirements), sound experimental design, and compliance with the existing lab procedures would suffice to raise any red flags.   Nobody does peer review of your welding project at Tech Shop.  If I want to do a giant sculpture of Elvis, its not going before a committee..even if it's the most hideous thing ever, catch my drift.  

This is a real philosophical issue: in addition to the practical implications of setting up extra review processes that someone has to administer and that users could find burdensome....it requires us to think about the function of these practices in Academia (where careers, tenure, and funding allocations all depend on these rituals and processes) vs. the hobbyist or entrepreneur biologist's needs.  

All of bioethics is kind of a minefield and I am wary of opening the door, however narrowly, to BioCurious invoking ethics judgments to veto someone's project.   We do have policies in place to deal with dangerous activity.  Beyond that, IRB's are mainly related to human subjects work and we're not engaged in that; given the set up of this lab and program, aside from quantified self type work where people are investigating themselves on and off BioCurious premises.  

Anyway, I'm confident we'll arrive at a satisfactory procedure but let's focus on getting the infrastructure in place to support some ongoing wetlab workflows rather than putting the cart before the horse or reflexively replicating the structures of institutional entities like Universities, which have very different budgets, purposes, and constituencies than BioCurious.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Good points, Joe.

I think the only places where some sort of review process would make
sense are topics that are currently off-limits at BioCurious anyway,
such as working with animals. If and when we expand into those areas,
it may be worth revisiting this discussion.

Other areas of concern would be working with (other people's) human
DNA, and/or working with pathogens (potentially including anything
isolated from the human body, even just from healthy skin). I assume
the former is whitelisted?

Patrik

[kathryn hedges]

Joe,

I'm tired of you setting up these massive straw men to ridicule my position.

It's becoming clear to me that doing research at BioCurious is a waste of my time. I guess I should thank you for letting me know before I wasted any more time or resources.

Kathryn

[Tristan Eversole]

On Oct 6, 2011, at 12:49 AM, Joseph Jackson wrote:

> This is a real philosophical issue: in addition to the practical implications of setting up extra review processes that someone has to administer and that users could find burdensome....it requires us to think about the function of these practices in Academia (where careers, tenure, and funding allocations all depend on these rituals and processes) vs. the hobbyist or entrepreneur biologist's needs.

Erm... I have to say that I'm not sure how grants, careers, and tenure alter the *ethical* considerations addressed by IRBs and IACUCs. The practical issues are easily visible, the philosophical ones far less so. I am looking forward to hearing you address this at OSS (if Jason's intimation that you intend to do a panel is correct), or I would be if I was confident that I could afford to go; I guess I'll run into it on the internet or something.

> All of bioethics is kind of a minefield and I am wary of opening the door, however narrowly, to BioCurious invoking ethics judgments to veto someone's project. We do have policies in place to deal with dangerous activity. Beyond that, IRB's are mainly related to human subjects work and we're not engaged in that; given the set up of this lab and program, aside from quantified self type work where people are investigating themselves on and off BioCurious premises.

Ah, would this be the genesis of the current limits on animals? (Still not clear on plants or fungi; presuming that protozoa are okay.)

> Anyway, I'm confident we'll arrive at a satisfactory procedure but let's focus on getting the infrastructure in place to support some ongoing wetlab workflows rather than putting the cart before the horse or reflexively replicating the structures of institutional entities like Universities, which have very different budgets, purposes, and constituencies than BioCurious.

I initially asked the question because I'm strongly interested in working on the animal Trichoplax adhaerens. I'm working towards getting a culture of them going as soon as I can. The Schierwater lab in Hanover has graciously offered to assist researchers with molecular samples and to identify the haplotypes of cultured T. adhaerens specimens as a means of furthering scientific interest in these creatures, in light of their position near the base of the metazoan tree. (And really, they're fascinating in their own right.) However, I do not have the money for reagents, so I cannot do any molecular biological work on them (actually, that kind of precludes my doing any molecular biological work at all, but you get the point), so it's not *quite* an immediate concern.

It would be easy for me to walk to the Toys R Us across the street and buy some brine shrimp; I could order some Triops off of ThinkGeek right now; for Daphnia I'd have to shop around and find a good pet store. This would be much easier than buying chemicals from Sigma-Aldritch or getting a well-defined bacterial strain from the ATCC (for example). None of these creatures is devoid of biological interest, either:

--Trichoplax lies near the base of the metazoan tree. Sequences from Trichoplax have prompted a novel reconstruction of the tree of the animals which places the diploblasts and triploblasts as sister groups. We know nearly nothing about the natural history of these creatures and researchers have thus far been unable to get a Trichoplax embryo to proceed past the 128-cell stage in the laboratory. This is not because Trichoplax is impossible to keep, it's because we haven't been working at understanding its full lifecycle for very long.

--Artemia (brine shrimp) were discussed on the DIYBio list as a possible target for genetic engineering; although we currently don't have too many sequences from Artemia, we've managed to insert genes into it before. I'm not quite sure what people might want to do with it, but the potential is there.

--Triops is a "living fossil" genus, having exhibited little morphological change over the last 200 million years or so. As someone who is interested in macroevolution, this is naturally very intriguing. (Think punctuated equilibrium, for example.) There are only two pages of Triops genes in Genbank, and all of them are mitochondrial. With the new Daphnia genome just published, it might be possible to extract some nuclear genes from Triops and construct a possibly novel phylogeny for the genus-- or run tests for evidence of selection, or go hunting for microsatellite regions, or try to develop some ESTs, or any number of things.

--Daphnia is the first crustacean to be sequenced. It is a model organism for pollution studies. Roughly a third of its genes have no known homology, and much of its genome is thought to be involved in responses to different environmental conditions-- the authors of the paper reporting the Daphnia sequence point out that most gene expression studies have been conducted in standard environments and that we know relatively little about gene expression in highly stressful environments (I may be getting this wrong, but hopefully not too far wrong). I am fairly sure that we have also managed to get genes into Daphnia.

Given that the last three animals are sold at Toys R Us, pet shops, ThinkGeek, etc., I figured that the regulatory burden and safety requirements for them were probably fairly low. I think that's probably also true for genomic standbys like C. elegans or Drosophila, but I really don't know for sure. I'd just like to know what the procedure for getting brine shrimp allowed in the building is, or if we have a procedure like that, or, if we don't, whether we will have one at some point. I respect the fact that there's a large backlog of issues to deal with, but I'd really appreciate it if I could get some idea of what the priority on the "can I bring in some Triops" question is. The only reason this is a hypothetical is that I am currently much too poor to do PCR or gels; even so, I could probably wrangle the $14.99 to get a Triops kit from ThinkGeek.

I'm sorry this has spawned as much controversy as it has; I didn't mean to get into vertebrates, let alone humans and review boards.

--Tristan

[Tristan Eversole]

Thank you so much for the information, and for pointing me to the Animal Welfare Act! I really appreciate it. :)

[Louis Hom]

I think we need to call a TIME OUT and make sure everyone is actually
using the same vocabulary, because there seems to be some confusion.

IRBs' and IACUCs' sole purpose is to ensure that minimal standards in
ethics and safety are met by proposed research. Their role is NOT to
judge the scientific merit of proposed work. They are COMPLETELY
DIFFERENT from the grant review committees and journal review panels
that *are* set up in order to evaluate the scientific merit of
research.

IRBs and IACUCs essentially provide supporting documentation to grant
review committees and journal review panels in order to guarantee that
the rules will be/have been followed.

I don't think anyone here actually proposed that bc have a panel to
review the scientific merit of members' work. But there does need to
be a system in place to say, "okay, this person is working only with
their own DNA, and they understand the rules of handling human
specimens (you want to protect your own privacy, and your own sample
is still considered a biohazard under Universal Precautions, after
all)".

* * * *

As an aside, I think it is a mistake to say that we don't want to open
the door on bioethics debates. I believe we have an obligation to
visit that space early and often, particularly as an organization
focused on activities (e.g., supporting a public lab) that represent
brand new territory.

Considerations of bioethical implications should be proactive in
nature, just like we try to anticipate issues in chemical safety
before there's a problem.

Lou

[kathryn hedges]

Thanks, Patrik and Louis.

I'm glad we agree on what review boards do. My concerns are that if I want to recruit people for a QS type of study, that since I don't have a clinical background, I might overlook potential ethics issues or harm. There are a few ideas starting to form, that address an area of research that is wide open.

If I opted to work with Lumbriculus (aquatic annelid), this species is sold for fish food, and I probably wouldn't even need to work at BioCurious anyway. Eric and I have been working on DIY equipment to emulate the Neuroscience experiments back in my former PI's lab at Humboldt. I'd probably collaborate with my old PI. However, would I be liable for charges of animal abuse for working outside a university lab?

Is this any clearer?

Kathryn

[Joseph Jackson]

Oh boy, should have held off on weighing in on this email thread until we could all discuss in person, but ok

1)  Tristan or anyone else who has need of price assistance for the Open Science Summit just let me know and we'll work something out.  It unfortunately costs quite a bit to put on an event, especially having moved to a venue this year that is really pricey.  Open doesn't mean free, but I of course want you there and we are not excluding anyone because of inability to pay.  

2)  Kathryn, I didn't mean to ridicule anything you were saying there and you bring up legitimate, serious concerns.  I realize you were upset by another thread that degenerated into total trolling on the DIY bio list.  My friends from LA were involved in that flame war and I unwisely chimed in with a particular joke that is one I sometimes can't resist throwing in if somebody sets it up like Cory G did (and he was really being kind of aggressive on that thread).  I apologize and hope you can forgive me and understand that I have a somewhat off beat sense of humor and was directing my comment at the absurdity of that whole exchange.   

3)  The board has deliberated quite a bit about the best ways to enable safe, ethical, and responsible research activities of the community.  We have clearly not been able to communicate that effectively with the community yet and we are still learning how this whole process will work.  We are making every effort to create an environment where everyone can carry out the research they are passionate about, so I don't think we've ruled out anything that Kathryn wants to do. What we currently have in place is essentially a set of guidelines like what Louis described.  

We have not termed this an IRB or moved toward a formal mechanism like that because we are not recipients of NIH or other funding, nor are we, as a legal entity, making assurances to anyone such as journal panel, that the research conducted at BioCurious is complying with their standards of scientific conduct or integrity. 

This history of IRBs is fascinating and they exist because of some very dark abuses of science (Nazi experimentation, exploitation of vulnerable populations such as prisoners and racial groups, etc).  One recent book on this is Skloot's:  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/books/review/Margonelli-t.html?pagewanted=all

 We've come a long way since the wild west early days of medical research.    

The future role of IRB's and citizen science is a fascinating topic and I also enjoy bioethics debates as much as the next person (much more so probably).    

Still, we have to strike a careful balance, and it may be that a fully formalized IRB goes beyond what it is reasonable for BioCurious to provide.  In fact, it can lead to false assurances in a case where a member says, well the BioCurious IRB signed off on my experiment, so it must be ok.  

IRB's are a fact and feature of modern human subjects research conducted in a high stakes, politicized arena with big $$ involved and big liability concerns.  It is not yet clear to me that BioCurious is stepping into that realm.  

I'm sorry we haven't been effective at addressing all the issues involved here, but we will do better.  Thanks,

Joseph 

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Louis Hom <lou...@gmail.com> wrote

[Bruce A. O'Gara]

All,

I've been involved with IRBs & IACUCs at several universities.  This bodies usually do not make a judgement as to the scientific merit of the study, that function is performed by the granting agencies.  However, IRBs will sometimes prevent studies from going forward if they believe that the cost/benefit ratio to the patient is not adequate (for example, if they believe that treatment is unlikely to produce benefit to the patient and has a significant risk of an adverse outcome - failure to approve studies for this type of reason usually generates great controversy).  The primary role for IRBs & IACUCs is to assure that the proposed study conforms to federal, state & sometimes local regulations.  Both committees will sometimes consider ethics of a particular study (more of an issue with the IRBs), but only in the context of the regulations (mostly patient protection issues & truly informed consent [as well as the issued mentioned above]).  Regarding one of the comments below, a person's privacy must always be strictly maintained.  With very rare exception, any data released to the public or another researcher must have any identifying information stripped from the data (All publicly released data must have identifying info stripped.  Occasionally another researcher will require identifying information, but this release must be approved.).  The released information also must be in a form that a clever person couldn't look at the data & deduce the specific individuals who produced particular data points.  Ideally, it should be impossible to determine from the released data who were the individual subjects involved in a study.

One correction of a comment below that states that IACUCs are concerned with ectothermic vertebrates.  Ectotherms are what we often call cold-blooded animals (cold-blooded & warm-blooded are poor terms, but that's an issue for another day).  The animal research regulations usually only address endotherms (warm-blooded animals).  However, as a practical matter, all of the IACUCs I've been involved with require approval for any protocol involving a vertebrate, regardless of whether it's endothermic or ectothermic.

--
Bruce A. O'Gara
Professor of Biological Sciences
Humboldt State University
Arcata, CA
Office:  707-826-3178
FAX:  707-826-3201

[Jonathan Deikman]

Huh?! Where did that come from? Incidentally, trying to ridicule others is not something you're entirely innocent of yourself: 

FROM:

TO:

Goat curry, om nom nom ....

On Sep 23, 2011 1:03 PM, "Jonathan Deikman" <jdei...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> No problem. Simplify: no hazardous wastes, no animal experiments. Does a "goat mascot" really poses a threat to BioCurious or anyone else? I think not.

Guess being concise makes it alright.

No one's going to stop you from experimenting with Lumbriculus Katherine.

> Jon
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Patrik D'haeseleer <pat...@gmail.com>
> To: biocu...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 12:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [biocurious] Re: This is Who I Am
> 
> Goat mascot for BioCurious! Hazardous waste disposal, animal
> experiments, and food science in one tidy package.
> 
> What could possibly go wrong, right?
> 
> Patrik

[Tristan Eversole]

On Oct 6, 2011, at 11:39 AM, Jonathan Deikman wrote:

> No one's going to stop you from experimenting with Lumbriculus Katherine.

It also looks like there's no serious regulatory obstacle to my performing a tentative phylogenetic study on Triops (am I right in thinking this?). I assure everyone that tadpole shrimp are probably quite safe and are unlikely to carry any pathogens; if I am wrong, I claim all responsibility. I am actually quite fond of creatures like Triops and do not wish to hurt the poor dears, so I would strongly prefer to get DNA out of them in a nonlethal way if possible.

The more I think about it, though, the more fun getting nuclear genes out of Triops and submitting them to GenBank sounds. There are two problems: 1) I'd have to set up the tank at BioCurious, because there's no room in the house and it would be very difficult for me to ferry them back and forth to the lab, and 2) it would be some time (possibly quite a long time) before I could manage to do PCR, etc. on them. If Triops would be permitted in the facility, I would go ahead and order them right now. I think their eggs have a longish shelf life anyway, so I wouldn't have to set up the tank right away.

Thoughts?

--Tristan

[kathryn hedges]

Who was being ridiculed? Obviously we weren't having a realistic discussion of raising goats on the premises; goats need pasture. Experimenting to see if they can eat oleander (the poisonous shrubs with pretty flowers behind the parking lot) definitely would be animal cruelty! I guess Patrik's "food science" comment meant goat milk for cheese, yogurt, etc. but goat meat is tasty too, at least for us omnivores. I should've realized that would be offensive, and I'm sorry. I should be more respectful of vegetarians & vegans. (not sarcastic)

In response to my reasonable queries about scientific ethics, one of our board members responded with screenfuls of BS claiming I had asked BioCurious to rate the scientific merit of people's ideas and what a terrible idea that was. That's completely not what I was arguing at all, making it a straw man argument. I was also disgusted that the people running this joint were displaying a lack of understanding of how science works. If I'm being asked to spend either $150/mo cash or >$400/mo labor for lab privileges at BioCurious but I can't do work that will be accepted in a journal, forget it. Whether or not BioCurious lets me have my hypothetical Lumbriculus experiments isn't the issue; the issue is whether the State of California will charge me with cruelty to animals because I'm using live invertebrates without proper supervision. (FYI, the experimental methods I'm using don't require anything worse than moving the worms around and bopping them on the head or tail with a hair, about as bad than poking you with Nerf.) And I don't even need your facilities to do the work; I could do it in a corner of my studio apartment.

Regarding the other thread over at DIYBio (and one of the participants in the Saturday night salon at BC), I am appalled how many people in this community think it's clever to accuse people of being "retarded" as an insult. I understand it's a way of saying something is beyond merely being stupid, but it's no better than calling someone a racial epithet. Just because someone with an intellectual disability is unlikely to read our posts and be offended isn't the point; the point is that our society needs to get away from derogatory attitudes about things people can't help. Whether it's their disability, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, whatever--using negative terms as insults is wrong and unnecessary. There are plenty of ways to complain that someone has derailed a thread or said something immature without bringing disabilities into it.

I don't know if I would trust someone whose sense of humor comes straight from grade school with ethics judgments anyhow.

Kathryn

[kathryn hedges]

This makes more sense. Thank you for clarifying.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

One last comment from me on this topic -

I think it would make a lot of sense to have a panel of experts that
people can approach on their own initiative if they have questions
regarding safety and ethics issues. As Kathryn suggested, someone
putting together a QS-type experiment may *want* to get some advice on
safety, legal or ethical issues they may not be aware of. This could
be as simply as having a list of members online with "come talk to me
if you have questions about X".

Right now, I don't think the "no animals" rule is any worse than the
"no chemicals" rule. It's a pragmatic rule that stems mainly from the
fact that we don't have the infrastructure in place to deal with those
issues, and bigger priorities to deal with first. Eventually, I assume
that restriction will be relaxed somewhat and we'll converge on a
happy medium somewhere in between the "no animals" (which strictly
speaking would rule out the biosphere as well) and the "no endothermic
vertebrates" extremes. I think working with brine shrimp, triops,
annelid worms etc. would fall roughly in the same category as the
biospehere with ghost shrimp, in terms of requiring little
infrastructure and posing very little safety and ethical issues (no
more than pulling a leg off a cockroach anyway!).

And no, I wasn't really serious about keeping transgenic goats at
BioCurious. ;-) I am amused by the thought of glowing green goat curry
though...

Patrik

[Teach Outside]

And yes, I did mean "endothermic." I appreciate the lively
discussion.

-Heather

> >  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/books/review/Margonelli-t.html?page...

> >> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 1:38 AM, kathryn hedges <biolart...@gmail.com>

[kathryn hedges]

Excellent suggestion for the expert panel, Patrik.

Kathryn

[kathryn hedges]

Joe,

I realized I did not specifically accept your apology. Thank you.

Kathryn

[Josh Perfetto]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 8:33 AM, Louis Hom <lou...@gmail.com> wrote:

You're right that the IRB needs to review proposals on an individual
basis, but I think it is also important to have a strong pre-existing
framework so that everyone feels like their proposal was reviewed
objectively and wasn't rejected because of some inappropriately
subjective criticisms.

We're not requiring any review of experiments at BioC, but rather we expect members to be aware of lab capabilities & policies and ensure their work fits under our permitted activities. We explain this during the initial safety orientation, and will be doing a number of things to keep everyone aware of them as they change, and if members are not sure whether something is supported, they're welcome to ask by emailing saf...@biocurious.org.

If they want to do something we don't yet support, we encourage them to contact us and explain what they want to do. If we can't immediately do so, the response will likely be like:

"We can't support that activity right now, because we would have to do X, Y, and Z first."

Then:

"We'd like to do so, and think the timeframe might be T. Here's what you could do to help" or "That's not something we foresee doing anytime soon"

As we're not doing any sort of review of experiments, we are not providing any sort of IRB.

-Josh

[Josh Perfetto]

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 12:31 PM, kathryn hedges <biola...@gmail.com> wrote:

If I'm being asked to spend either $150/mo cash or >$400/mo labor for lab privileges at BioCurious but I can't do work that will be accepted in a journal, forget it. Whether or not BioCurious lets me have my hypothetical Lumbriculus experiments isn't the issue; the issue is whether the State of California will charge me with cruelty to animals because I'm using live invertebrates without proper supervision.

I want to clarify this as many people are confused about what roles BioCurious is playing. We are not operating an IRB that can help you get published in journals that require an IRB, however Jason posted links with some options, and I think it would be great for members who want to publish to get together to explore options for meeting the IRB requirement for work done at BioCurious, and it would be something great to post to the wiki once it's figured out.

We are committed to ensuring everything done at BioCurious is done legally, and with a reasonable level of safety, however. We are not leaving it up to members to fend for themselves here, but putting a lot of time into researching regulations, which can occur at the federal, state, county, and city levels, and be from multiple entities at each level. We're attempting to make lab policies and communicate them to members which keep things legal while being 1000x more clear. It is precisely because this process takes time that we have some over-reaching blanket policies right now like "no animals" -- that keeps us in the clear while we investigate.

Note that we can't be 100% sure our policies will entirely reflect all laws and regulations, and we are not offering any form of guarantee, but we are putting in a substantial effort here in order to allow our members to do work without having to become experts in safety or regulations themselves.

I think a big part of the value BioCurious provides is the ability to come in and do work right away without having to setup your own lab, and our safety framework is a part of that value (especially as it matures).

-Josh

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Great answers, Josh - thanks!

Patrik

[kathryn hedges]

Yes, Josh, thank you for the information.

I'll find a newer computer that will allow me to access the previous link for the Western IRB; their site requires a browser that won't run on OS 10.4.9, and I'm not upgrading just for that.

Kathryn

[Nathan McCorkle]

On 10/5/11, Dan Wright <djwr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This does not distinguish between spine and spineless.
> Although there are probably
> some federal lab animal regs that do
>
> California Penal Code 597
> (a) Except as provided in subdivision (c) of this section or
> Section 599c, every person who maliciously and intentionally maims,
> mutilates, tortures, or wounds a living animal, or maliciously and
> intentionally kills an animal, is guilty of an offense punishable by
> imprisonment in the state prison, or by a fine of not more than
> twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and
> imprisonment, or, alternatively, by imprisonment in a county jail for
> not more than one year, or by a fine of not more than twenty
> thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.
> (b) Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (a) or (c), every
> person who overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks,
> tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, drink, or
> shelter, cruelly beats, mutilates, or cruelly kills any animal, or
> causes or procures any animal to be so overdriven, overloaded, driven
> when overloaded, overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of
> necessary sustenance, drink, shelter, or to be cruelly beaten,
> mutilated, or cruelly killed; and whoever, having the charge or
> custody of any animal, either as owner or otherwise, subjects any
> animal to needless suffering, or inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon
> the animal, or in any manner abuses any animal, or fails to provide
> the animal with proper food, drink, or shelter or protection from the
> weather, or who drives, rides, or otherwise uses the animal when
> unfit for labor, is, for every such offense, guilty of a crime
> punishable as a misdemeanor or as a felony or alternatively
> punishable as a misdemeanor or a felony and by a fine of not more
> than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000).
> (c) Every person who maliciously and intentionally maims,
> mutilates, or tortures any mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish
> as described in subdivision (d), is guilty of an offense punishable
> by imprisonment in the state prison, or by a fine of not more than
> twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and
> imprisonment, or, alternatively, by imprisonment in the county jail
> for not more than one year, by a fine of not more than twenty
> thousand dollars ($20,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.
> (d) Subdivision (c) applies to any mammal, bird, reptile,
> amphibian, or fish which is a creature described as follows:
> (1) Endangered species or threatened species as described in
> Chapter 1.5 (commencing with Section 2050) of Division 3 of the Fish
> and Game Code.
> (2) Fully protected birds described in Section 3511 of the Fish
> and Game Code.
> (3) Fully protected mammals described in Chapter 8 (commencing
> with Section 4700) of Part 3 of Division 4 of the Fish and Game Code.
> (4) Fully protected reptiles and amphibians described in Chapter 2
> (commencing with Section 5050) of Division 5 of the Fish and Game
> Code.
> (5) Fully protected fish as described in Section 5515 of the Fish
> and Game Code.
> This subdivision does not supersede or affect any provisions of
> law relating to taking of the described species, including, but not
> limited to, Section 12008 of the Fish and Game Code.
> (e) For the purposes of subdivision (c), each act of malicious and
> intentional maiming, mutilating, or torturing a separate specimen of
> a creature described in subdivision (d) is a separate offense. If
> any person is charged with a violation of subdivision (c), the
> proceedings shall be subject to Section 12157 of the Fish and Game
> Code.
> (f) (1) Upon the conviction of a person charged with a violation
> of this section by causing or permitting an act of cruelty, as
> defined in Section 599b, all animals lawfully seized and impounded
> with respect to the violation by a peace officer, officer of a humane
> society, or officer of a pound or animal regulation department of a
> public agency shall be adjudged by the court to be forfeited and
> shall thereupon be awarded to the impounding officer for proper
> disposition. A person convicted of a violation of this section by
> causing or permitting an act of cruelty, as defined in Section 599b,
> shall be liable to the impounding officer for all costs of
> impoundment from the time of seizure to the time of proper
> disposition.
> (2) Mandatory seizure or impoundment shall not apply to animals in
> properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations
> performed under the authority of the faculty of a regularly
> incorporated medical college or university of this state.
> (g) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if a defendant is
> granted probation for a conviction under this section, the court
> shall order the defendant to pay for, and successfully complete,
> counseling, as determined by the court, designed to evaluate and
> treat behavior or conduct disorders. If the court finds that the
> defendant is financially unable to pay for that counseling, the court
> may develop a sliding fee schedule based upon the defendant's
> ability to pay. An indigent defendant may negotiate a deferred
> payment schedule, but shall pay a nominal fee if the defendant has
> the ability to pay the nominal fee. County mental health departments
> or Medi-Cal shall be responsible for the costs of counseling required
> by this section only for those persons who meet the medical
> necessity criteria for mental health managed care pursuant to Section
> 1830.205 of Title 7 of the California Code of Regulations or the
> targeted population criteria specified in Section 5600.3 of the
> Welfare and Institutions Code. The counseling specified in this
> subdivision shall be in addition to any other terms and conditions of
> probation, including any term of imprisonment and any fine. This
> provision specifies a mandatory additional term of probation and is
> not to be utilized as an alternative in lieu of imprisonment in the
> state prison or county jail when such a sentence is otherwise
> appropriate. If the court does not order custody as a condition of
> probation for a conviction under this section, the court shall
> specify on the court record the reason or reasons for not ordering
> custody. This subdivision shall not apply to cases involving police
> dogs or horses as described in Section 600.

Dan, other than the "(2)" paragraph quoted below, how does this apply
to animal experimentation otherwise? The verbiage in most statements
includes "maliciously and"... someone skilled at animal sacrifice
(whatever you want to call it) does not equal malicious animal abuse.
Lots of animals are considered varmints, shooting a few on your
property isn't malicious. People raise goats and rabbits for meat, so
is extracting brain cells OK if you also butcher the meat and make
curry? If you're doing this at a relatively small scale, who can be
offended other than vegetarians and vegans (who KILL PLANTS for their
trophic purposes).

If you think butchering for meat is OK, then why not just do it in a
sterile manner, and save some of the cells in PBS for testing your
potentially toxic plant extracts in vivo??? Seems like no issue to me.

"(2) Mandatory seizure or impoundment shall not apply to animals in
properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations
performed under the authority of the faculty of a regularly
incorporated medical college or university of this state."

>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Oct 4, 2011, at 10:39 PM, Louis Hom <lou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think there are probably 2 flavors of regulations that apply -- 1)
>> due to animal welfare regulations, we need to steer clear of
>> vertebrate species, and 2) rules regarding health and safety mean that
>> we should avoid human pathogens, carriers of human pathogens, and
>> significant/exotic agricultural pests too
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 10:23 PM, Tristan Eversole
>> <custome...@trioptimum.com> wrote:
>>> (Should I be putting [biocurious] in the subject fields of these emails?)
>>>
>>> As sort of a follow-on to the email about chemicals:
>>>
>>> Where are we at on the animals/plants/fungi front? Could I take in
>>> Daphnia/Artemia/Drosophila/Triops/Trichoplax? If found a cool terrestrial
>>> flatworm, could I put it in a jar and show it to people(*)? I have stored
>>> some dandelion seeds from backyard which, while probably the same
>>> species**, exhibit wildly different phenotypes; could I grow 'em there or
>>> would I have to do it here?
>>>
>>> I'm not asking because I plan on turning the lab into some kind of
>>> crustacean menagerie; these are hypotheticals. I'm just unclear what
>>> kinds of legal restrictions exist for, say, the keeping of brine shrimp.
>>> I can't imagine that it's tightly regulated, but you never know, do you?
>>>
>>> --Tristan
>>>
>>>
>>> *Sure, they BELONG in places like Borneo, but they made it out here.
>>> Really. Here's what one looks like:
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_aSR5FK0Y . And if you think that's
>>> weird, you should see a terrestrial nemertean.
>>>
>>> **Dandelion taxonomy is screwy, so maybe not, or maybe it all depends on
>>> how you count.
>

--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[Dan Wright]

subjects any

animal to needless suffering

Depending on the experiment,  some prosecutors and a jury of your PETA peers may find it to be needless suffering. Irrespective of criminal charges we need to be aware and not make ourselves targets of PETA or ALF, among others.  "You people"  are in good hands with Joe and Eri. 

Dan

Sent from my iPhone

[kathryn hedges]

Animal rights people can get really worked up over the darnedest things, and convince others to go along with them. A university Biology department has the clout to stand up to this, but DIY Biology has to avoid scaring people.

The local animal rights group at Humboldt State University, which is way more hippie than Berkeley, started a campus chapter. The student group solicited petition signatures to ban the use of any live creatures, even invertebrates (namely worms and cockroaches), in student labs. They gathered ~1,200 signatures out of ~8,000 students--twice the number that voted in student body elections. (If fish are "sea kittens," what does that make 3" cockroaches? "Gutter puppies?")

Two of these experiments used invertebrates as replacements for vertebrate models. In one, students measured oxygen consumption in Madagascar hissing cockroaches under stress in a confined space, which was deemed cruel. This experiment originally used mice. In the other, students anesthetized and dissected night crawlers to extract the muscular crop-gizzard and study the effect of different drugs on muscle contraction. I think this used to use frog legs. Nobody's circulated a petition about stepping on wild, non-anesthetized earthworms on the sidewalk during the rainy season.

The other experiment was the non-invasive neurophysiology experiment on California blackworms that I've blathered about so much lately. (Our PI was strict about us locking the lab door when we left, lest activists "liberate" our worms and/or trash the computers/equipment.)

Luckily, the Biology Department was well-established in a university environment, and didn't have to worry about being tried by a jury of anti-science locals. (They would've been doomed, in that case!) I'm sure it helped that the University President is a Drosophila geneticist. So our Chair told the petitioners they were free to change majors or drop the classes before the drop deadline. But if you take the class, you can't get a conscientious objection to individual labs. And BTW, worms and roaches are exempt from IACUC authority.

Kathryn

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 3:15 AM, kathryn hedges <biola...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Animal rights people can get really worked up over the darnedest things, and
> convince others to go along with them. A university Biology department has
> the clout to stand up to this, but DIY Biology has to avoid scaring people.
>
> The local animal rights group at Humboldt State University, which is way
> more hippie than Berkeley, started a campus chapter. The student group
> solicited petition signatures to ban the use of any live creatures, even
> invertebrates (namely worms and cockroaches), in student labs. They gathered
> ~1,200 signatures out of ~8,000 students--twice the number that voted in
> student body elections. (If fish are "sea kittens," what does that make 3"
> cockroaches? "Gutter puppies?")
>
> Two of these experiments used invertebrates as replacements for vertebrate
> models. In one, students measured oxygen consumption in Madagascar hissing
> cockroaches under stress in a confined space, which was deemed cruel. This
> experiment originally used mice. In the other, students anesthetized and
> dissected night crawlers to extract the muscular crop-gizzard and study the
> effect of different drugs on muscle contraction. I think this used to use
> frog legs. Nobody's circulated a petition about stepping on wild,
> non-anesthetized earthworms on the sidewalk during the rainy season.
>

Well I would think negatively of someone crushing worms during rainy
season, I actively try to avoid them myself and do feel a bit bad for
destroying a self-assembled piece of the universe.

But really, killing a mouse here and there for a purpose is another
ball game compared to watching small children beat a dog because its a
power trip (my father quotes me as a boy seeing this and saying to
myself "uh huh, those are bad boys").