A New Jersey infectious disease lab seems to be plagued with an inability to keep track of research mice infected with dangerous pathogens.

The facility, part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, seems to have misplaced two frozen carcasses of mice infected with bubonic plague last December, the New Jersey Star Ledger reported this weekend. According to the facility, the Public Health Research Institute, the bag containing the two dead mice probably stuck to another bag of biomaterials in the freezer heading for incineration, and was burned.

The Public Health Research Institute is a biosafety level 3 lab that studies Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, and other pathogens. After the infected carcasses were discovered to be missing, the institute notified federal authorities immediately, and according to the FBI, the dead animals do not pose a public health threat. Even so, the incident underscores the kinds of human errors that can arise in working with infectious pathogens.

In 2005, the same institute came under the spotlight for accidentally releasing two live plague-infected mice.


Related stories:

Plague in New Jersey?
[17th September 2005]

$1 million fine for biosafety snafus
[20th February 2008]

The biosafety mess
[31st January 2005]