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    MSU RW

    [0:00:00]

    Interviewer: Starting the recording. Thank you for being here and formaking the time for this. To start off, could you tell me a bitabout your mouse related research program?

    Respondent: We are working on mitochondria. We're working onmitochondrial diseases and we're working on aging and the roleof mitochondria dysfunction in aging. We are generating micewith [0:00:27] expressing proteins or locking down proteins tomanipulate the mitochondrial DNA, that small mitochondrialgenome to cause mitochondrial dysfunction and then study theeffects on organ function.

    Interviewer: What is the source of your funding?

    Respondent: It's the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft[0:00:52] which is something like the NIH which or the NationalScience Foundation, the most important and only source forfunding in Germany. That's my source of funding. Then, we havea huge medical faculty and I'm at the medical faculty and wehave intramural funding from funds of the faculty.

    Interviewer: Okay. Could you give me an idea of the scale and scope of

    your collaborations?

    Respondent: With other groups?

    Interviewer: Yes. Like which countries for example do you mostcollaborate with?

    Respondent: We share mice with the recently founded Max PlanckInstitute for Biology of Ageing. These are the colleagues whichcame from Karolinska Institute from Stockholm. I mean, it was acollaboration which was started when they were still in

    Stockholm but now they are also in Cologne. And then I'm justimporting mice from a colleague from Paris. We have strongconnection to New Console [0:02:12] in Great Britain, that's avery important place for mitochondrial research especially theclinic [0:02:19] mitochondrial diseases and neurologicaldisorders. And then there is Nihmegen [0:02:25] in theNetherlands which is also an important place for mitochondrialresearch. That's about it, and Munich in Germany.

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    Interviewer: Munich, is that with the Helmholtz?

    Respondent: No, with the university[0:02:42].

    Interviewer: With the university, okay. Could you tell me a bit about thepros of using mice as model again as stems [0:02:50] in yourwork compared with other animal models or human materials.

    Respondent: I'm a trained biologist. I'm working in a medical faculty andI've been working with mice for only a rather short time,something like six to seven years. I think, seven years ago whenwe had our first knockout mouse which we got from other peoplein the lab and I was working with cultured [0:03:16] cells frompatient material before. I think everything which has beeninvestigated in cell culture [0:03:26] in many, many things

    which has been investigated in cell culture are probably simplyartifacts of cell culture[0:03:32]. Everything which one has to --which one would like to, well, to extrapolate to the livingsituation one has to study the whole organism. But since I'mworking on a new medical faculty, for me, mouse is the mostobvious option. I appreciate people working with yeast[0:03:52] and several fish and [0:03:54] and [0:03:56] forexample also especially in the ageing field. The [0:04:00] and[0:04:02] works extremely important and to show the basis ofthe ageing process. But I mean -- at the end of the day, you haveto check whatever you found out, whether this plays any role in

    [0:04:16] and then you have to make a mouse.

    Interviewer: Absolutely. It's the old distinction between enrichment andweevil[0:04:21].

    Respondent: Yeah.

    Interviewer: But are there any challenges of using mice?

    Respondent: What do you mean challenges?

    Interviewer: Well, one common criticism of using mice from the otherside, people who don't use, is that they are not humans and --

    Respondent: But they are the most closest when[0:04:39] one can get.They are most closest to human. Of course, one could work withrhesus monkeys but that's too expensive and also ethically, it'sforbidden. And I mean[0:04:52] especially for my field, ageing,one may say that mice are living in a nonnatural environment in

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    their cages but we in our industrialized countries, we are notliving in the natural conditions. So we are living like the mice. Weget food as much as we want and drink and we don't freezeandwe don't have any parasites. So I think mice are fine. It's the bestwe can do.

    [0:05:17]

    Interviewer: Absolutely. Yup.

    Respondent: But one has to realize that what one finds in a mouse maynot be true for humans but then okay, this has to be thenchecked later.

    Interviewer: Yeah. Have you yourself ever made a mouse line or morethan that?

    Respondent: Yeah.

    Interviewer: What happened to it? What cause or action did you takewith it?

    Respondent: We made it three years ago and it's a tissue-specificknocked in of the dominant negative mutation. A knock in andthen replay in [0:05:55]. So in addition to the wide-fied[0:05:56] protein, we have a dominant negative protein whichthen damages the mitochondrial DNA. We use this mouse line

    now to study very different organs. We have now five lines andwe are going to expand that and just produce mitochondrial DNAdamage in every important organ system in the mouse body asyou can think of. We get very, very surprising results.

    Interviewer: So you generated the line for the uses [0:06:24] withinyour own research program.

    Respondent: Right. I'm going to give it away as somebody approachesme. So we're going to publish the first paper on this mouse verysoon and when people ask me to help, if they want to have this

    mouse line, to fiddle around with mitochondrial DNA in an organ,what I would say, in the cell fibers [0:06:48] I know nothingabout that. That it is just far away from my expertise and I will bevery happy to share it.

    Interviewer: What about commercializing, for example, patenting it orselling it in any other way?

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    Respondent: I didn't start thinking about that. I mean, I don't even knowhow the process works to send, to give it to the Jackson Lab[0:07:14] but of course, at some point I would start to findingout what I have to do and how important that is and whether thisgives me any advantage. Patenting, I don't think this can be

    patented because it's an approach which is not so unique andthere are other mouse models over expressing proteinsdamaging the mitochondrial DNA. I haven't thought about it butmaybe I should. It's a good idea. I should contact my PatentOfficer next week and ask. It's a good idea but I don't think so.

    Interviewer: Well, no, I didn't mean to plant the idea. It's just a questionbecause it's quite heavily emphasized out in America to patentmouse lines, right? I'm just wondering if it's different in Europeand what the approach of your research funding body is in thisregard.

    Respondent: Yes. Palomino University[0:08:09] asked us to tell them ifwe think we have something then they will check it and then ifthe university finds it appropriate they would then take all thecost and would then also take a large part of the benefit but ifthey decide it's not patented, well, not worthwhile, I mean thenmany people say okay, then I'm not going to do it on my ownpocket because if they are patent lawyers, they know this isnothing which we can make profit from and probably they areright and probably it's just a waste of money and energy becauseit's taking a lot of energy. I had a patent for a while but it was for

    a scientist. It's just a no-go because it's so boring to writeobvious text and it's very, very tedious. So I would not go for it ifI'm not 100% sure that I would make money with that.

    Interviewer: That does not move, [0:09:10] yeah. For sure. Youdescribed to me that you would give the mouse away, the linethat you developed. Otherwise, do you respond to request formouse-related materials from you? Has there ever been a time,for example, when you've turned a request on?

    Respondent: When I turned it over -- I considered the first mouse line. I

    didn't have a request yet. I mean, we could talk about cell lineswhich we generated and I gave them away to other people. I'msure that's what I will do with the mouse lines as well. But ofcourse only if people are not claimed to do an experiment andbreed them with a creline of which I had in mind.

    Interviewer: Could you elaborate on that a bit please?

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    [0:09:58]

    Respondent: Let's say if somebody would use this mouse line to damagemitochondria DNA in lymphocytes or in T cells, I know nothingabout the immune system because I think the immune system is

    so extremely complicated. Either you are an immunologist or youjust don't follow it because that's old and just not reallyprofessional. So if somebody would ask me for a mouse line to doit in for an immune cell type, then I would give it away just likenothing. If somebody would ask me because he would like todamage mitochondria DNA in liver, probably I would say nobecause maybe I would like to do that in two or three years whenwe have published all the other mouse line because then I willfeel [0:10:49] comfortable enough to interpret the resultsmyself.

    Interviewer: Of course. Do you do this with an MTA then you haveshared materials?

    Respondent: Yeah. I mean, our university does that. This is -- I mean,Germany is actually competitive state [0:11:09]. We are way,way behind but we are doing -- we have now an officerresponsible for that and maybe five years, I'm not sure all the biguniversities had this in 20 years which is helping very much too[0:11:25].

    Interviewer: Yeah. Now, almost [0:11:28] of the section on sourcing

    materials, that means from where you get the mouse materialsthat you work with. From where do you primarily sourcematerials and what form do they come to you?

    Respondent: Again, I'm not so sure whether I'm really the best partnerbecause I just started to work with mice a few years ago. Whileother people have ten mouse lines in their lab, we only havethree and now by close [0:11:57] breeding them with cross --with different cre lines we generate different chromosomes[0:12:03] but the basil [0:12:04] mouse lines, there's onlythree mice. One I got from the European Mouse Mutant Archive

    (EMMA) and so I got them from them, and one which I got fromKarolinska Institute in Stockholm and the other one is the onewhich I will now import from Paris.

    Interviewer: Did you have any interesting experiences when you weretrying to get the mice? For example, like if you see thequestionnaire, I'm just thinking of difficulties like MTAs, anytiming issues, administrative holdups?

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    Respondent: No.

    Interviewer: I'm glad to hear that.

    Respondent: Yup. Perfect[0:12:47].

    Interviewer: Sometimes people have those challenges so I thought it'sjust worthwhile[0:12:52] to ask what happens.

    Respondent: But then this mouse, this EMMA mouse -- are you stillthere?

    Interviewer: Yeah, I am.

    Respondent: Because there was a strange sound in the line. This EMMA

    mouse line didn't work properly. I mean, they sent us embryosand we implanted those embryos, frozen embryos and weimplanted them and we never got mice. The service was bad. I'mvery sure it was not our facility because our facility is doing thisroutinely all the time. I mean, they have some failure rate but it'svery, very low. I'd rather think that this was not -- the embryoswere not working well. That's a bad experience. I told them andthey were very upset because of course that's not -- that casts abad reputation on this European Archive.

    Interviewer: Did they offer to do something to rectify the situation?

    Respondent: Well, I mean, I didn't have to pay for it. It was a free offerfor European scientists and that's why I didn't complain becauseit cost me really nothing.

    Interviewer: Okay. Yeah. Well, that's a pity that happened.

    Respondent: Yeah, but then I got the mice from somebody else.

    Interviewer: Could you tell me from whom else did you get the mice?

    Respondent: Those mice then I got from Frankfurt, from the Universityof Frankfurt.

    Interviewer: Was that from a collaborator?

    Respondent: From a collaborator -- well, I mean, people just gave it tome [0:14:31] a colleague which I know very well, also a badmouse line.

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    Interviewer: Okay. That's good to hear. Have you ever had any trouble-- I know that you have not worked for a very long time with micebut six or seven years is a decent amount of time. Have you everhad any problems dealing with commercial suppliers?

    [0:14:52]

    Respondent: No, because I didn't import yet. I bought some mice fromGenoway[0:15:01] which is a European company and they soldold mice, very old mice, something like 18 months old, heavilyextensive[0:15:11] and that was the only time when I bought amice from them. I think our animal facility, our central -- I willchange a room. We have a family meeting here today. So I'm athome. This is my home phone number. But just let me go toanother floor.

    So what did we talk about?

    Interviewer: We were talking about your experience with commercialmouse suppliers.

    Respondent: Yeah, with Genoway [0:15:41]. I know that our animalfacility, our central animal[0:15:46], if I want a BL/6J[0:15:50]male six months old, they will then buy it from, I don't know. Idon't even know where they buy it from. Probably, we havedespondence [0:16:03] from Jackson in Europe or we have

    Harlan or there's Genoway[0:16:08].There are few commercialsuppliers who supply inbred [0:16:12] mouse line. But I don'tdeal with that. This is done by our animal facility.

    Interviewer: Now in your experience and over the last few years, whatdo you think has been the biggest challenge you have had ingetting mice? The biggest difficulty you faced?

    Respondent: Just importing them and then the embryos and they didn'twork. Of course, there's one big challenge, taking in the[0:16:46] status of the mice because every mouse has its own

    collection of microbes, of parasites and whatever and they're allharmless and it's completely normal that a mouse is not sterile.But then you want to know with this mouse which I import fromParis, I mean, it took a long time to find out in which of ouranimal facilities I could import that one sitting more or less themicrobes[0:17:15] of the mice. This is a big problem that is ofcourse worldwide. Every animal house facility will have its ownspectrum of mouse pathogen. Veterinarians are very nervous

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    about that which of course I understand but this is an issue tochallenge.

    Interviewer: Anything else with customs issues or shipping holdups oranything like that?

    Respondent: No. I mean, the pain in the neck is that it's so extremelyexpensive. I mean, this will be something like 1,000-worth[0:17:51] for mice to import them from Paris to Cologne which isa three hours drive, four hours drive. I mean, this is ridiculous. Ithink the people who transport -- transporters, they make a lot ofmoney. A lot and we have to pay unfortunately because there'sno other option. I'm thinking of going there by car and pick it upmyself.

    Interviewer: Probably which you go[0:18:18].

    Respondent: And spend the night in Paris which is a beautiful city.

    Interviewer: And there you go. It's a game.

    Respondent: Yeah, but it's not allowed. It would be illegal.

    Interviewer: Oh yeah, really? Why?

    Respondent: Yeah. It would be against the animal whatever becausewith animal transportation, it's protected [0:18:35] and if done

    by all [0:18:37] and that the mice don't suffer, et cetera. I'msure they will not suffer because I will take care very much ofthem because I really need them for my work.

    Interviewer: Yeah. But they'll only allow the official agency to take careof it[0:18:49].

    Respondent: Yeah. Right.

    Interviewer: Moving on to the third section about the utility of the IKMCand the IMPC resources, I'm just wondering, have you heard

    about the IKMC and the IMPC before you got the survey call?

    Respondent: No.

    Interviewer: Okay. So I had some questions about -- if you have had thechance to go with a bit of background information that I offeredabout the IKMC and the IMPC and these resources that havebeen developed, they're all noncommercial resources. What's

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    your opinion of the -- do you have any opinion of the utility andthe quality of these resources?

    Respondent: That is great. I mean, it's great. The thing is we would havea worldwide net of exchange routes, of cre lines, and [0:19:37]

    lines. That would make life so much easier. Of course, gooddatabases, good centralized databases have to be there and Ithink then mice would become much, much easier. I mean, thereare already many ways and in Europe, there's something,actually have it in the States, [0:19:57] there's a center whereyou can buy ES cells, randomly mutagenized ES cells and so if Iwant to make a mouse with a knockout of the protein, a simpleknockout, then I could check whether in this ES cell collectionthey just have it and then for a very little money, not very littlebut for relatively little money, I can simply get the ES cells whichgives me then[0:20:26] an important step, producing my own

    ES cells and I think one could even have service that theyimplant with all their knowledge and all their routine. Theyimplant the ES cells and then you get the mouse.

    [0:20:41]

    Interviewer: Yeah.

    Respondent: I mean all this is extremely important since I considermouse work extremely important. Everything which would makeour lives easier and make the decision to do an experiment

    which means make a mouse, make another mouse and thencross them which is something -- long-term goal, takes a littletime, it's very expensive, if nothing comes out, it's a completedisaster.

    Interviewer: What do you think are the main obstacles to the long termsustainability of these big resources? I mean, for example, abigger role of funding which is always an issue and theninfrastructure, legal impediments. Do you have any thoughts onthese?

    Respondent: Well, of course, somebody has to take the initiative from allthese. The initiative has been taken. I think as people pay thefees, appropriate fees, then I don't see a reason why they haveto be funded. It should work -- you just sell mice or embryos orwhatever. As many people are using the same facility, then itshouldn't plague[0:22:02] any taxpayer's money at some pointor maybe I'm nave, I don't know. I don't know how expensivethat would be.

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    Interviewer: In an ideal world, it would probably work. But do you haveany thoughts on what stops people from using these facilitiesand resources?

    Respondent: No. I wouldn't have any problems. So what's been -- canyou tell me? What stops people?

    Interviewer: My personal thoughts are, well, for example, peoplehaven't heard about it. So if you don't know that it's there, howwill you use it?

    Respondent: That's bad. There has to be -- there's [0:22:39] amarketing.

    Interviewer: Yeah. I was thinking, what do you think is better

    marketing? It would be really good to know. I mean, honestly, Iwould really like to know from you because I would becommunicating that to people in Canada, for example, who workin NorKOM.

    Respondent: Yes. I mean, emails are -- that's the only way you can do it.And of course, everybody gets too many emails and so many,many emails you simply click away. So you just have to --[0:23:09] producers mark emails and they look, "Do you knowthat this is noncommercial and we're not making money withthat and we're doing this for the mouse community?" That's the

    only thing which you can do or you go to big meetings, to the bigBoeing [0:23:28] conferences and the big [0:23:29] meetingsor whatever meetings where people are who -- and you justplace a slide -- when the sessions begin you place a slide, "Didyou hear about our facilities where you can get your mice andwhy not contact us?" or something like that. But at Cologne[0:23:48] you shouldn't commercialize it like a companybecause, I mean, that would be a lot of -- probably it would bevery expensive and would take away a lot of resources which youcould better spend for running the facility and having as manymice as possible.

    Interviewer: Yeah. Have you ever looked into the IP policies of theseconsortia from those links that were in the survey?

    Respondent: Not really. I gave this to our Law Department. I hatereading these kinds of things. I just gave it and we have a verygood department and they read it and then I'm just importing achemical, a drug which is commercially available, which is given

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    to patients. I'm trying to get it from the company, from thefarmer company[0:24:41] which is producing it and a very, veryinteresting experience because they sent an MTA and then ourlawyer said, "Oops, there's a part that[0:24:50] you sent me tosee which would really make it not impossible but difficult for you

    to publish your data as fast and as easily as you want." And thenthere was a three-month back and forth of communicationbetween our law department and their department. And then itwas not -- so something like this of course I would expect withsome commercial mouse distributors when may have someobstacles like that.

    [0:25:23]

    Interviewer: Yeah. Well yeah, it's definitely something to remember,isn't it? What in your opinion as somebody working in academics

    is the right balance between commercializing and open access?[0:25:42]

    Respondent: I would say everything, every material which has beenproduced by taxpayer's money has to be stored somehow andavailable open access and commercially available should thingsonly be which are created and generated by companies. I'venever imported a mice from Jackson but I heard that it's veryexpensive so I probably -- I will have to do that next year and I'mnot sure whether this is a good thing because I mean, when Igive my mice to them -- so what happens if I give my mice to

    them? Do I get money from them?

    Interviewer: I'm not really sure how it works, to be honest.

    Respondent: As far as I know, I don't. I mean, I give them to them andthen they commercialize it and of course they send them out andthe transportation costs are high but all this, I mean again,everything which has been done, every material which has beenproduced by taxpayer's money, I should not pay a high priceagain with taxpayer's money. That's what I'm saying.

    Interviewer: As far as I understand it, if you deposit in Jackson, the lineyou deposited will be made available to other researchers andit's not legally complicated like there isn't an enormous MTA. It'sjust simply Conditions of Use but about the exact cost and fees,I'm yet to compile the figures on those so I can get those back toyou at[0:27:15] later date.

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    Now moving on to the question of contributing members, whenresearchers contribute to buy resources and databases, so as wejust spoke about Jackson and what you plan to find out overthere, but have you ever deposited to other repositories, otherdatabases?

    Respondent: Have I ever deposited anything to some? No. No stemlines, no. No. I think.

    Interviewer: Do you plan to look into it for the line that you arecurrently working on for example?

    Respondent: If I would look for cre lines, I look at the internet site ofJackson that's in[0:28:06] Harlan of whether they would have acre line which I would like to have. But then I would always ask acolleague first and try to share it and not to pay the fees.

    Interviewer: What do you think would encourage researchers such asyourselves to send materials and data to these resources?

    Respondent: If I know that this is an important contribution to the wholecommunity.

    Interviewer: Yeah.

    Respondent: Or getting money. Not money for my pocket but moneywhich I can spend in my lab. Something like a small grant, that

    could be a way to. But do you think there's lack of -- doesn'tpeople keep things and don't give them away freely?

    Interviewer: It depends on the situation, right? I mean, it's not likeeverybody has the same set of difficulty. Some people just don'thave enough people to handle the issue of sending somethingout.

    Respondent: Yeah, that's true.

    Interviewer: And for example, have you faced personnel challenges, I

    mean personnel like there's[0:29:18] not enough people in theoffice to just process this stuff?

    Respondent: Our University is excellent in that case. That's because thisuniversity is really, really working well since a few years.

    Interviewer: That's good to know. Some people have had that problemfor example. It's just about time and people and just not having

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    the time to send it out and not knowing where to send it out tooas well.

    Respondent: Yeah, that's true. I wouldn't know how I have to do that butwe have people which I simply could ask and then they will tell

    me what to do and then they will just take care of it but I'm surenot many universities in Germany will be as well-equipped asours and the other big ones like [0:30:14] or Heidelberg[0:30:14] or Berlin.

    [0:30:16]

    Interviewer: The risk of doing what is called a leading question, I'mgoing to say this. Suppose for example that you are writing afunding application and the funder said, "Can you give me thecell line numbers, accession numbers, and the repositories where

    you deposited them?" and it was indicated, that's a good thingfor the grant application. Would that --?

    Respondent: I don't get it.

    Interviewer: Okay.

    Respondent: I don't get it.

    Interviewer: I'll explain that again. It was a little complicated. I'm sorry.

    Are you ever asked in your grant application reports even you'remaking a grant application or in your midterm reports, are youasked if you deposited materials or data somewhere?

    Respondent: No. If I am asked. There is a question, the DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft [0:31:05] they do ask but it's notreally important. I mean, they don't care whether you answerthat or not. It's not really important. Nobody really cares.

    Interviewer: Hypothetically, if the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft[0:31:26] really did make it important, then would that push or

    persuade people to deposit and send stuff?

    Respondent: Yes. I mean, if they would convince me that -- theargument would be, "Look, we give you money, taxpayer'smoney. You produce material. Then you are off -- you arepushed. You should then deposit this material at company orwhatever A, B or C because those are the ones who will thendistribute this with relatively little cost to the community but I

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    would hesitate to do that if I would have to give my material tosome company which then makes money with it.

    Interviewer: Yeah. Sure. Can you give me an idea of what informationyou generally provide to, for example, the Deutche [0:32:25] in

    your materials management plans?

    Respondent: We don't have that. We are very lucky. We have to dothings like that if we apply to the European Commune [0:32:38]which is a pain in the neck because then the applications designsare not so important. It's just filling out forms is more important.Many people reject and don't apply for EU grant anymorebecause it's so much stupid work which one simply doesn't wantto do. But Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [0:32:57] is veryuncomplicated, very unbureaucratic and they simply don't dothat. It's not an issue. I mean, maybe this is not very

    professional. Maybe that's the reason why there is nointernational lab of material exchange. Maybe this is the way tosqueeze it, to really push it.

    Interviewer: Yeah. That's a really good sight[0:33:23] for sure. Movingon to the penultimate section on animal welfare, ethics and bestpractice, my questions here are not being asked as an ethicistbecause I'm not one. They're just being asked because I'm justinterested in practice, that's all. What are the institutionalpolicies on animal welfare and practices with animal careespecially with respect to mice?

    Respondent: Oh, they are very, very strict. They're very strict and theauthorities which are supervising us, obviously, they have beentold that too many mice are killed in Germany for scientificreasons and so they are extremely strict making as we have toapply to them. Before you start to do it, your experiments, beforeyou start to do your mice and then even producing a mousewhich is then born with a genetic defect which may be harmfulfor the mouse, before you do that, you have to apply and youhave to tell this Ethic Committee [0:34:26] that you're going todo that and then you have to write a long, long, long application

    and you have to explain to them why you think this is animportant experiment for mankind and for the world and basicresearch. It's a very tedious process, very, very tedious. You getit back and they ask you questions and you send it again and youget it back again and you So they are making our lives a littlebit tedious.

    [0:34:55]

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    I agree that it's important that they are there because scientists,if they are not supervised, they would maybe sometimes dothings which shouldn't be done just for the -- because just forthem -- because they are so eager to understand something and

    of course to get it published and to get the next fund, whatever.The system is just -- that would be very dangerous. It's good thatwe are supervised but in Germany, it's not an easy situation andit's getting worse at the moment. In the whole Europe it's gettingworse because there is -- all the countries of Europe have toequalize with the European Communion Law [0:35:39] and theEuropean Communion Law [0:35:41] is very, very animalwelfare-friendly. Our conditions are getting more difficult.

    Interviewer: Yeah. I was just thinking, funding, there's always a verytight funding timeline. What's the gap between the amount of

    time it takes in the animal welfare process and the funding? Howdo the two things affect each other?

    Respondent: Six months to one year so I have to plan ahead very, verywell. When I'm writing a grant application which then takes abouthalf a year to be approved. I better have started six monthsbefore to write my animal application. So that's a pain in theneck because maybe you write something and you have thepermission to do the experiment and then the funding agencytells you, you don't get the money for it.

    Interviewer: Oh yeah. I can appreciate how difficult that must be. Couldyou give me an idea, the practical process for the delivery ofmice? When the mice arrive and they're going to the facility, howdoes that process take place? I mean, who handles that?

    Respondent: The animal[0:37:05] and the professional animal keepers.They would take them and then if they are from another source,if they are not from our own facilities, they would go into somequarantine first for a few days and they will watch them if theyare healthy. I mean, we only can import mice with a healthcertificate which is a form which is European right[0:37:36]. It's

    a standardized certificate. Sometimes our veterinarians say, "No,you cannot import these mice from this place because they havemicrobes which don't fit into any of our facilities." Then, that's it.So they come in and then they get into cell quarantine and thenthey look at whether[0:38:00] they're sick or they are not sick,then they are fine and then you can import them into yourfacility.

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    Interviewer: And does anyone ever come by to enforce animal welfareand to check if everything is being done by the rules.

    Respondent: Yes. There's a veterinarian which is paid by the city ofCologne.She is the veterinarian of the city of Cologne and she's

    taking care of the zoo. If she's taken care of, I don't know. She'staking care of -- she's responsible for animal welfare aroundeverywhere in the city. I don't know whether she also takes careof the chicken being squeezed into small places to lay eggs. I'mnot sure whether she's responsible for that too.

    Interviewer: Is this single person doing everything on her own?

    Respondent: Probably not, no. Probably this person is just responsiblefor experimental animals and then I know that she's responsiblefor the zoo. We have a big zoo here in Cologne.

    Interviewer: Yes, very well-known one. I think that kind of coverseverything that I had to talk about. It's been really great. In thefuture, I will be in touch with you with the report, summaries andpeer reviewed -- I'll send around the links for the papers thatmight come out of this.

    Respondent: Okay. That's fine with me.

    Interviewer: It's been really great and I'll just piss [0:39:24] so she'llhave the recorder now.

    Respondent: Okay.

    [0:39:27] End of Audio

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