◼ COVID-19 / VIRUS Bloomberg Businessweek March 16, 202060
new line. “We’re getting our first animals and are
in the process of doing additional breeding,” says
Charles Miller, Jackson’s global logistics chief. “Right
now we are just scaling as fast as we can.”
Pregnant mice need about three weeks to
deliver their pups, and newborns need about six
moreweekstoreachmaturitysothecyclecanstart
again.Jacksonis takingpreordersandhasn’tyettold
would‑be customers when they’ll receive deliveries.
China’sCyagenBiosciencesInc.saysit willhave
micereadynextmonth.GenOwayaimstodevelopa
newerbreedthat’sbettertargetedtocoronaviruses,
but it says that could take a year or more.
The mouse crisis is one reason talk about the
speedy introduction of a vaccine isn’t realistic.
Withoutmicetostudy,scientistssimplycan’tfully
testpotentialdrugsandvaccines.“It’sa major
bottleneck,” says Nikolai Petrovsky, a profes‑
sor at the medical school of Flinders University in
Adelaide, Australia. He says animal testing is “abso‑
lutely essential” and cautions against political pres‑
sure to speed up the process. “I know some people
are talking about bypassing animals and going to
human studies,” Petrovsky says. “But that’s fraught
with difficulty and danger.”
In the meantime, some in the field are exploring
alternatives. Bowen, the Colorado State researcher,
says he’s trying tests with ferrets, hamsters,
guinea pigs, and rabbits, though they all havePHOTOGRAPHBYTRISTANSPINSKI FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
▶ When the virus
started spreading, the
Jackson Laboratory
had none of the mice
needed to develop
a vaccine▲ Frozen mice semen
at Jackson