Science, interrupted: Oregon research threatened in a pandemic world

During the early days of the pandemic, whether or not you had a backbone could have been the difference between life and death. At least if you were a lab animal.

“(Oregon State University) would let you take care of fish during the shutdown, but invertebrates were not considered to be, I guess, important enough,” said OSU eco-toxicologist Susanne Brander.

She studies how microplastics and chemical pollutants affect sea life – including the lowly spineless mysid shrimp that plays a big role in the ocean food web.

Not being able to access her lab was a big problem, so she had to come up with a solution on the fly.

“The best place to put them was my basement,” she said.