4 ms·

It's not terrible for in vitro studies, but that would be a stretch for in vivo studies at a CRO, especially for oncology, where lots of studies require tumor g

It's not terrible for in vitro studies, but that would be a stretch for in vivo studies at a CRO, especially for oncology, where lots of studies require tumor grafts. It's not my area, but I think those mice can run $1000 and up per animal. The cheap, more common strains are ~$25 each. I haven't looked at the papers they're trying to replicate, but in my lab, it's not unusual to have 60 mice in a study, so you can see how just getting animals into your facility can be expensive.

dingo_bat 8y ago
$1000 per mouse? Seems really expensive.
- amelius 8y ago
  Annual cost of small mammal ownership: $300 Source: https://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-1166&y=-2798&z=5 https://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-1166&y=-2798&z=5 Add to that expenses for the experiment, and $1000 seems not far fetched.
  - mattkrause 8y ago
    That’s for a pet. While labs have huge economies of scale—-I worked somewhere with a quarter million mice—-the mice aren’t just random field mice. Some of the genetically engineered ones are hundreds of dollars a pair (and possibly more if custom, raised under unusual conditions, etc). Xenografts need skilled labor and very clean conditions for the immunocompromised mice. $1000 seems a little high, but not much, especially if the work isn’t being done by an underpaid grad student.
- jonlucc 8y ago
  It is; that's my point. As mattkrause notes below, that number is for mice with human tumor xenografts. You have to harvest a human patient's tumor, blend it up, and inject it into immunocompromised mice. If you buy them from the vendor who has to buy their tumors, pay their labor, and make a profit, they're not cheap. If you have ready access to clinical tumors and cheap labor, the price drops precipitously to ~$70. By the way, you can poke around some of the animal vendor's sites. They mostly have their pricing on their websites along with a bunch of other information. Four really big ones are Taconic, Jackson Labs, Envigo, and Charles River.

dingo_bat 8y ago

$1000 per mouse? Seems really expensive.

amelius 8y ago
Annual cost of small mammal ownership: $300 Source: https://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-1166&y=-2798&z=5 https://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-1166&y=-2798&z=5 Add to that expenses for the experiment, and $1000 seems not far fetched.
- mattkrause 8y ago
  That’s for a pet. While labs have huge economies of scale—-I worked somewhere with a quarter million mice—-the mice aren’t just random field mice. Some of the genetically engineered ones are hundreds of dollars a pair (and possibly more if custom, raised under unusual conditions, etc). Xenografts need skilled labor and very clean conditions for the immunocompromised mice. $1000 seems a little high, but not much, especially if the work isn’t being done by an underpaid grad student.
jonlucc 8y ago
It is; that's my point. As mattkrause notes below, that number is for mice with human tumor xenografts. You have to harvest a human patient's tumor, blend it up, and inject it into immunocompromised mice. If you buy them from the vendor who has to buy their tumors, pay their labor, and make a profit, they're not cheap. If you have ready access to clinical tumors and cheap labor, the price drops precipitously to ~$70. By the way, you can poke around some of the animal vendor's sites. They mostly have their pricing on their websites along with a bunch of other information. Four really big ones are Taconic, Jackson Labs, Envigo, and Charles River.