For over 18 years University of Washington research technologist Amy Wai Ying Lee has worked in Dr. Cho-Chou Kuo's UW laboratory where she injects mice with Chlamydia pneumoniae, a contagious respiratory disease to which humans are susceptible. According to records obtained by The Seattle Press, on February 2, when she was told to euthanize nine mice who appeared to be near death, she put them in a carrying cage, removed them from the high biosafety level room they'd been housed in, and placed them in a lower biosafety level room. The next evening she checked on them; according to some reports, she opened the cage in order to give them food and water. Then she tacked a note to the cage, asking another research technologist to euthanize the mice the next day, a Monday, because she didn't have time. That person later said that she didn't have time to euthanize the mice either. On Tuesday the contagious mice were still alive and housed in the lower safety level room.

Finally, a research technologist reported the situation to Animal Facility manager Pam Morris, who then took the technologist in to report the incident to Melvin B. Dennis Jr. D.V.M., professor and chairman of the Department of Comparative Medicine. He immediately impounded the mice and reported the breach of standard operating procedures for contagious animals to UW's Environmental Health Services.

The mice were euthanized, and an investigation of Lee's actions began. It was learned that she'd boarded a plane and was on her way to visit her family in Hong Kong. If she'd contracted Chlamydia pneumoniae from the contagious mice, she might have exposed everyone on the flight to the disease.

On February 21, Kuo's Chlamydia pneumoniae experiments were suspended by UW's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) for a period of six months. In order to restart the experiments he will have to convince the committee that he's capable of following experimental protocols and standard operating procedures in his laboratory. The committee also voted unanimously to indefinitely suspend Lee from animal use procedures on live vertebrate animals. She continues to work in Kuo's laboratory, however, and Kuo still conducts research at UW.

Amy Wai Ying Lee declined to comment for this article, and deferred to Dr. Kuo.

In a statement prepared for The Seattle Press, Kuo wrote, "I take full responsibility for actions within my laboratory and am redoubling my efforts to conform to the appropriate requirements. ... This was a highly unusual situation. There have been no other concerns raised about my laboratory's care of animals in the 35 years that I have been a professor at the University of Washington...."

Dr. Dennis, a member of the IACUC, disagrees. In a March 28 letter to the Office of Laboratory Welfare at the National Institute of Health, he writes that the suspension of Lee's experiments "resulted from a third occurrence of non-compliance with approved protocols, not the first. ..."

Dennis told The Seattle Press that he believes that Lee was properly trained in animal care and use, but that she was "just taking shortcuts." He said in his letter to NIH that Kuo "has created an atmosphere that sanctioned the technician's actions..."

Dr. Nona Phillips, professor of Comparative Medicine and coordinator of the IACUC, said that the suspension of an experiment is "very unusual." She could recall only two other times when a protocol has been suspended and restrictions placed on a researcher.

Laurel Holliday is a freelance writer and photographer in Seattle.