A day in the mouse house (McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls)

For 30-plus years, scientists at the McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls have performed cutting-edge experiments.

And while most residents of northcentral Montana have heard of the institute and have seen its distinctive building on the city’s
South Side, the day-to-day operations at the McLaughlin Research Institute remain a mystery to many. Most people aren’t aware
that world-class research is being performed in their own back yard.

To find out what it’s like to work at the institute and what goes on there on a daily basis, Tribune Business Editor Beth Britton spent
Tuesday touring the facility and talking to the scientists, technicians and interns who spend their working hours within its walls.
Here’s how the day went:

9 a.m. — Animal facility

Animal facility supervisor Julie Gilchrist checks a shipment of live mice bound for the University of Toronto. The institute
collaborates with labs and research facilities across the globe, so Gilchrist regularly prepares her mice for long journeys.

About 5,200 mouse houses — each holding up to five animals — are stored in the facility’s nine mouse rooms. The McLaughlin
Research Institute is home to about 100 strains of mice — close to 20,000 in all. Nine animal technicians and four cage-washing
workers care for the rodents around the clock.

And that care is very technical, Gilchrist says. Special neutral-pH detergent, specially formulated food and recycled paper bedding
is used, and everything that comes in contact with the mice is autoclaved for ultimate cleanliness.

The animal rooms have special temperature, humidity, air circulation and alarm systems. Lights are turned off from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
daily, allowing the mice to mate and romp in the dark.

But there’s no such thing as true love in a mouse house — the mice do not randomly choose their mates. Gilchrist and the animal
technicians work with the institute’s scientists to develop mating schemes and control the number of babies born to any particular
strain.

"It’s not really what people think," Gilchrist says. "Everything we do is extremely controlled, and we’re not breeding mice out of
control."

10 a.m.

Carroll College graduate Lisa Michel, 26, methodically monitors the mice in one of the mouse rooms.

"(The job) has given me a practical knowledge of what I learned in college," says Michel, who hopes to use her experience as a
springboard to forensic science studies.

Michel gently lifts her "pet," an older female she calls Peaches, from her cage.

"My job is to make sure the animals are taken care of the best they can be."

Meanwhile, Great Falls High School and Montana State University-Bozeman graduate Zach Zahara, 23, avoids being bitten as he
collects DNA samples from a group of mice.

Zahara also punches a mark on a particular spot on each mouse’s ear; the marks allow scientists and handlers to quickly identify
specific animals.

Zahara has a bachelor’s in biology and also hopes to pursue forensic science.

11 a.m. — Laboratory

Summer intern Thea Maristuen of Havre, a 20-year-old biology major at Pacific Lutheran University, joins C.M. Russell High
School biology teachers Tom Cubbage and Christine Sundly as they observe scientist Bill Provance at work.

Provance takes the controls of the Nikon Automated Fluorescent Microscope, where he injects DNA into live cells. The recently
acquired machine allows the scientists to work with live cells, something Provance says was not possible before.

"This place has a good reputation, and it gives me experience in the lab and an inside look at everyday life in a lab," Maristuen says.

"Few people know that this exists in Great Falls," Cubbage adds. "We’re doing what we just read about in textbooks."

Cubbage is a former participant in the Murdock Foundation’s Partners in Science Program, where teachers gain hands-on
experience in real-life laboratories so they can "turn students on to research," Cubbage says. The program also allows teachers to
buy science equipment for their schools.

In collaboration with Mercer, Sundly will submit a grant application for the program later this year. She hopes to spend three more
summers at the institute.

Provance works in the laboratory of scientist John Mercer, whose research is associated with diabetes and hearing loss. Both men
came to McLaughlin seven years ago.

"This is very cutting-edge research, but it’s a huge nationwide collaboration — lots of other labs are involved," Mercer says.
Because of the dry climate and subsequent lack of mold, Great Falls is ideal for growing tissue cultures.

"The misconception people have is that we do experiments on live animals, but we do virtually none," Mercer says. "This is cell
biology, and we depend on mice to provide the cells. Most of our time is spent making mistakes and figuring out what we did
wrong. We spend most of our time troubleshooting."

Noon — Parking lot

Maintenance workers pull weeds and spruce up the landscape in the front parking area. The grass planted when the facility was
built almost a decade ago is a five-blend native grass designed to complement the northcentral Montana prairie landscape,
Development Officer Dave Crum says.

Unlike the Kentucky bluegrass in most area yards, the five-blend doesn’t require extensive watering, which saves the nonprofit
institution money. The grass is healthy; it reseeds itself and is cut three to four times a year, Crum says.

1 p.m. — Transgenic facility

Senior research assistant Jill O’Moore leans over a microscope, attempting to flush fertilized eggs from a mouse oviduct — the
mouse equivalent of a fallopian tube. O’Moore gently inserts a microscopic tube into the duct; after about 20 minutes, she
discovers that no eggs are present.

"There’s a myriad of things that could go wrong," O’Moore says. "I think a lot of people think it’s a really glamorous job, but they
don’t have a concept of how many failures and frustrations there are."

O’Moore has been a senior research assistant at MRI the past nine years, recently making the move to the transgenic facility.

The transgenic facility — think of it as the "transfer of genes" facility– performs work for all of the institute’s scientists, and funding
secured by those scientists supports the transgenic facility.

"This facility has expertise in manipulating genes and moving them into animals," says scientist Bill Crain, who manages the facility.
"We answer the question of ‘What will happen if you put this gene in a mouse?’"

The transgenic team collects embryos, inserts genes, implants eggs and studies the strains of mice created at the institute.

The facility will move upstairs this fall, giving Crain and his staff more room.

1:45 p.m.

Crain points to a new machine that allows him and his staff to quickly analyze sperm before and after freezing.

Because storage space is at a premium, MRI is searching for an inexpensive, successful means of freezing mouse sperm, which will
allow researchers to keep mouse strains without storing live animals.

"Mouse sperm is hard to freeze, and one of our objectives is to find a way to do that better," Crain says. The machine looks like a
computer, but inside is a special microscope. With the push of a button, the machine examines the sperm on the slide, counting it
and analyzing its motility, among other things.

"Our product is information, and if you’re doing experiments you don’t know what the outcome will be," Crain says. "But knowing
what doesn’t work is important information."

On one level, the ideas are fascinating and it can be glamorous when you have successful experiments. "But you have to be willing
and able to think of sophisticated concepts and be happy spending the majority of your day cleaning up the bench top," Crain says,
laughing.

2:30 p.m. — Office

Summer interns Joe Krezowski of Great Falls and Dani Blessum of Highwood huddle near a computer, waiting for experiment
results.

Krezowski, 21, is a senior at Helena’s Carroll College, majoring in biology. He plans to pursue a medical degree. Blessum, 20, is a
senior at MSU-Bozeman. She hopes to use her biology degree in a research career.

They are nearing the end of their 10-week internships.

Interns play key roles in MRI’s research, says senior research assistant Chris Ebeling, who has worked at the institute almost 15
years.

"Our interns do not come in to be put in a corner of a lab," Ebeling says. "Their work feeds right into what we do; their research is
used."

When it comes to explaining what it is the institute does, Ebeling keeps it simple.

"I would say we’re interested in human disease, and we use mice as models, because they model human diseases. We don’t look
for a cure — we are a basic research facility. People think we’ll come up with some drug, but that’s not our mission."

3 p.m. — Laboratory

MRI Director George Carlson observes Krezowski and Blessum as they complete an experiment.

Research "is not a defined job. There is no routine every day," Carlson says. "Your job is to figure out what to do each day."

Carlson’s research is centered around the genetic basis of nuerodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The number of MRI employees has quadrupled from 10 to about 40 since it moved into its present facility on 23rd Street, Carlson
says.

3:30 p.m. — Staff lounge

Scientist John R. Bermingham Jr., who came to McLaughlin in 1998, relaxes in the staff lounge and in his laboratory.

Bermingham works on the formation of myelin, a fatty sheath that is required for speedy transmission of nerve impulses. He is
studying genes that control its formation.

"A mechanic needs to know how a car works in order to fix it," Bermingham says. "If we understand how the myelin sheath is
formed, then perhaps we could develop new treatments for diseases that affect myelin, such as multiple sclerosis and some
peripheral neuropathies.

"A big part of my job is funding; my salary comes from grants," Bermingham says. "And a part of my job is running the lab and
being an administrator."

Ironically, doing good work in the lab often results in promotions to a position where a majority of time is spent away from it, he
says.

Like the institute’s other scientists, Bermingham spends time away from Great Falls offering seminars and attending scientific
meetings.

"I think people assume that we all do the same thing, but every lab is different," he says.

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