Mouse milking machine

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A mouse milking machine is a machine for milking mice . A unique piece was developed in 1981 at the University of Ulm and presented at the Hanover Fair in 1983 "with a great media stir" . The term mouse milking machine also exists as a joke with reference to the phrase about mouse milking .

One of the responsible designers of this mouse milking machine, Günther Sawatzki, was questioned on the subject by the press office of the University of Ulm in 2007. Accordingly, the mouse milking machine was transported to Vienna in 1992 to the "research institute of a well-known pharmaceutical company", where Sawatzki had personally instructed the employees in the operation of the machine.

Mouse milk is obtained manually by milking mice with a pipette, 0.25 ml of milk per mouse can be collected in half an hour. In comparison, the one in u. a. Source described performance of the mouse milking machine of 5 ml in 5 hours (of several mice) twice as high as when milking the mice with a pipette. Mouse milk is used exclusively for experimental purposes in pharmaceutical research , e.g. B. in the development of a malaria vaccine .

A semi-automatic mouse milking machine was described as early as 1967. The company Braintree Scientific, Inc. of Braintree (Massachusetts) sells Mäusemelkmaschinen.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ FA Hoffmann, G. Sawatzki, H. Schmitt, B. Kubanek: A milker for mice. In: Laboratory Animal Science. Volume 32, Number 4, August 1982, pp. 387-388, PMID 7144113 , accessed September 1, 2016 (English)
  2. ↑ a b Willi Baur: Editorial. (PDF) In: uniulm intern. Ulm University , April 1, 2007, p. 2 , accessed on August 31, 2016 : "... in search of the now legendary mouse-milking machine"
  3. ↑ Anthony W. Stowers, Li-how Chen, Yanling Zhang, Michael C. Kennedy, Lanling Zou: A recombinant vaccine expressed in the milk of transgenic mice protects Aotus monkeys from a lethal challenge with Plasmodium falciparum . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . tape 99 , no. 1 , January 8, 2002, p. 339-344 , doi : 10.1073 / pnas.012590199 , PMID 11752405 , PMC 117562 (free full text).
  4. ↑ WF Feller, J. Boretos: Semiautomatic apparatus for milking mice. In: Journal of the National Cancer Institute . Volume 38, Number 1, January 1967, pp. 11-17, PMID 4289248 .
  5. ^ Automated Milker for Rat and Mouse. Lab Research Products for the Life Science Industry. Braintree Scientific, Inc., accessed September 3, 2016 .