I don't think they're proposing to scale up to that level, which would indeed result in excessive costs. Even scaling-up mice experiments would be quite costly

I don't think they're proposing to scale up to that level, which would indeed result in excessive costs. Even scaling-up mice experiments would be quite costly, and beyond the size of most research grants. There would have to be new funding mechanisms in place for work like this. The article proposes that this would be more economical in the long run, and so the NIH et al. should be in its favor. Perhaps they will create a new facility for just such work? Though that seems unlikely in the current funding climate.