“Traditional techniques for staining brain tissue produce byproducts and waste that are hazardous to the environment. And often, this sort of research is performed on animals, something Dr. Lam insists on avoiding. The radiation that illuminates the Stanford microscope was once a waste product produced by the particle accelerators. Now that it has been harnessed — recycled, in a sense — she is able to use it to examine tissue removed from living human patients, not animals…In 2012, Dr. Lam and Dr. Elan Ohayon, her husband, founded the Green Neuroscience Laboratory in a former industrial building in the Convoy District, an up-and-coming San Diego neighborhood. Solar panels rest on the roof, and a garden is lovingly tended on the second floor.
Dr. Lam and Dr. Ohayon refuse to experiment on animals, a mainstay of neuroscience research, and will not conduct research with military applications. At scientific conferences around the country, they have been urging scientists to stop clinging to dated notions of normalcy and deviance.”
I feel like someone sent this to me and I can’t remember who :/ either way, super interesting and I’m glad to see this happen. There are little labs I have occasionally encountered that look at developing more humane ways to do science but, frankly, there isn’t much funding or prestige in the work and there isn’t really an activist-scientist scene. We need more radical scientists J
This is associated with the Open Worm project which is pretty cool.
Also – I would be fascinated to know how this was being funded.
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