The closure of the Animal Resources Centre (ARC) would have major implications for Australia’s medical research effort. ARC has been the major breeder of specialised strains of lab mice and rats for over 30 years and they supply animals to medical research programs at most of Australia’s universities and medical research institutes.

Closure of ARC would not just affect the many medical research programs that depend on these specialised strains of mice and rats, there is also the potential loss of the technical expertise required to breed them.

Breeding the highly specialised strains of mice and rats required for medical research is very demanding. Of course, animal welfare should be top priority but to ensure that research data are reliable, a huge amount of effort also has to go into other aspects of their breeding, especially the genetics.

For example, most lab mice are simply white or black, so without careful genetic monitoring, there is no way of knowing what strain you are working with – which of course is utterly crucial to the quality of the science. ARC has always maintained the highest standards in these aspects of their breeding programs and I can’t see how this can be replaced.