Lab Animal Care and Research Timeline Adaptation

I am absolutely thrilled to have started my summer project! So far, I have received the female rats for my research and acclimated them to regular handling and their new cages. For a week and a half, I collected baseline (pre-experiment) data, including the body weights and food intake of the animals. This step is crucial to ensure that the animals are eating within normal limits and to establish average body weights and food intake for reference once semaglutide (SEMA) administration begins.

Currently, the animals are in the dose escalation phase, during which I administer increasing doses of SEMA over a 10-day period. This procedure is intended to control the adverse effects that SEMA may have on the animals, allowing them to gradually adapt to the drug. While the initial stages of my project have progressed relatively smoothly, I have encountered some issues. The animals received for this experiment are extremely skittish, indicating that they have not adapted well to being handled. Typically, once animals are received for any experiment in my lab, they are group housed, handled, and then individually housed over the course of a week. This process usually results in fairly docile animals; however, my current animals remain quite jumpy. This has necessitated an extension of their acclimation and baseline data phases beyond the initial plan, consequently delaying the initiation of other experimental stages.

To address this issue, I have begun arriving earlier than planned to start maintenance, which involves measuring daily food intake, body weights, and administering injections to the animals. Arriving earlier gives me sufficient time to complete necessary maintenance without rushing or extending into the animals’ dark cycle. This challenge is an example of the types of hurdles I expect to encounter over the course of this summer. Each animal we receive is unique and may possess qualities that could hinder the experiment’s progress. For instance, if an animal eats too little, it may delay the initiation of the dessert test or other protocols due to health concerns. To mitigate these issues, I plan to allow for flexibility by arriving early to collect data and including buffer days between stages in case problems arise that need to be assessed and addressed. Therefore, I will not be worried about missing deadlines and scrambling to make time to address problems. Nonetheless, I am very pleased with the current pace of my project and am very excited for the start of the binge eating paradigm!