ASHA BHONSLE LIVE AND DEAD RATS

I do not like what Maneka Gandhi has done to science labs in the name of animal rights. I do not see eye to eye with animal rights activists who think that in the name of science, scientists torture animals. I believe that these people have just no idea how much of their own health is indebted to past research on animal systems – most medicines that each one of us takes have been developed primarily in animal labs. Much of our knowledge about the way our physiology works is derived from research on animals. Without this research on animals the life expectancy of human beings would not have been what it is today.

Be that as it may, I have once been guilty of a crime in the animal lab that I could have avoided entirely.

The Salk Institute for Biological Research in La Jolla, California, has a vast animal facility in the basement. I was involved in breast cancer research in this institute. I had to first of all produce cancer in the rodents and then see which genes were mutated in the cancer tissue. This also involved removing ovaries of female rats so that their bodies did not produce estrogen, a hormone that can promote breast cancer.

Initially ovariectomy (removal of ovaries) appeared to be a difficult task to me. The rats had to properly anesthetized and precise incisions were to be made for pulling the ovaries out. I was taught the art by a lab technician called Barbara. She always carried a severe expression on her face whether she was teaching me or drinking beer. It did not help at all. I soon started having all kinds of accidents. Once an improperly anesthetized rat started walking all over the place with its innards hanging out! I was so shocked at the sight that I did not even pick it up to be re-anesthetized. Barbara picked it up for me and made it smell ether. It should have been the rat with an expression of severe reproach on its face. But in this case it was Barbara who displayed that expression.

However, practice made it easy and eventually I became very adept at it. So much so that I could have done the whole thing blindfolded. The drill went something like this:

Put some cotton at the base of a broad mouthed tube and pour some ether into it. Ether is a good anesthetizing agent. Put this tube inside a sterile hood which has a table too for you to work. Pick up a female rat from the cage and make it breathe the ether fumes. Once it is unconscious, pick it up, put it squarely on the table and with a scissor give a cut on both sides of the backbone between the backbone and the hind legs. Poke a scalpel into the opening thus created and pull out the innards. The ovary will look like a flower. Hold it properly at the base and cut it off. With the help of a hot coil cauterizer, cauterize the area so that the blood flow stops. Stuff the innards back into the opening and then clip the opening closed. Do the same procedure on both the sides and cut off both ovaries. Put the animal back in its cage which is maintained at 37 C temperature. Take another rat and repeat the procedure. It got so that I normally had one rat exposed to ether while I was operating on the other. Also, when I pulled out the innards, the ovary would be the one organ I would be holding between my scalpels and not any other part of the anatomy. I worked very fast and everybody knew that if someone could take out an ovary faster than it could make estrogen, it was I. I must admit that I was also quite complacent about the fact.

On a particular day, as I was setting an electrophoretic gel, Saraswati came and sat besides me. Saraswati was the head of the lab and a highly accomplished scientist. She was also one of the best human beings I have ever encountered in my entire life.

“I don’t know how I am going to do all the things slated for today,” was how she began the conversation.

“Why? What happened?” I asked, still working on my gel.

“I have to write this report and get it done today itself. That itself will take me to 11 AM. I then have to make this presentation, that cannot be put off at all. That should take me to lunch. Post lunch, I have to be at the President’s office and answer his queries about future plans. God knows how long that will take. Then I have to ovariectomize 120 rats. I cannot put this off either. I don’t think I will be able to reach home till well past midnight if I start now.”

“Shall I make some coffee for you?” was my response to that.

“What? What has coffee got to do with this?”

“Coffee will get your mind off this for some time. Besides, over coffee I can tell you that I will do the ovariectomy for you.”

“Why will you do that for me? You have your own work to think of. Besides, these are 120 rats. No, no. I will see what I can do about this.”

I eventually persuaded her. Later I asked Ingo, my German friend to look after my gels while I went down to the animal lab.

My calculations were that at 5 minutes per rat, I would require about 10 hours to ovariectomize 120 rats. That would take me up to 5 in the evening.

I began in right earnest. Each cage contained 10 rats. I timed myself that each cage should take just about 55 minutes and no more.

At 3 in the afternoon, the phone rang. I picked it up. It was Vineet. This guy worked at Genentech and was a music and liquor buff.

“Hey, Avinash. You coming to the programme?” he asked without any preamble.

“Which programme?” I asked still working. I hooked the thing between my shoulder and ear and continued to handle the rats.

“Don’t tell me you have not heard about Asha Bhonsle performing live today evening at LA?”

“Oh, is she? Well, I can’t come. There is a bit of work and I won’t be free before 5.”

“That’s not a problem. I can’t be free either before 4.30. But tell you what, I will wait outside the gates just about 5. You show up and we will go together. Otherwise I will push off alone. Too good to miss.”

“Alright. That’s fine by me. If I don’t show up, you push off.” I told him and hung up.

I worked faster now. Who wants to miss Asha? I looked at the state of things. There were two cages remaining and I was onto the last rat in the cage that I was presently handling. The next hour was a blur. I strained at it and took less time than usual. When I got the last cage down, it was just past 4. Just time enough for me to complete the job, go upstairs, wash my face, have a quick coffee and run for the gates.

I put the first rat down onto the table. It was breathing nicely and had gone to sleep from ether. I gave it two quick cuts on the back. Poked my scalpel inside and pulled the innards out and was going to give a quick cut when I noticed that between my scalpels was not the ovary but a piece of the intestine. Shit! I searched for the ovary. There wasn’t one to be found. I pulled more material out and looked. No ovary! Then I found it. It still did not look like an ovary but I thought that it was one. I gave a cut. I poked on the other side and came up with the same predicament – no ovary. I repeated the same thing here too.

On to the next rat and to the same predicament. What’s wrong? I thought. This never happens. Ovaries love me. The moment they know that it is Avinash holding the scalpel, the jump squarely into the scalpel! And now when I am rushed for time, the gland is playing a trick. One after the other, to all the 10 rats I gave the same treatment. I cut what seemed most like an ovary. I pushed the cage back into its place, dashed upstairs, washed myself, got a cup of coffee, ran out while still drinking it. I was just in the nick of the time.

Asha regaled us till well past midnight. We came back almost by 4 in the morning. I lay down on the cot without sleep, just to get my back straight.

At 7 I was back in the lab. When Saraswati arrived I told her that her rats waited for her downstairs. She thanked me and said she would go down around noon.

I went to the basements to look at the rats. That was standard procedure. Part of post-operative care. You look at the rats. See whether they are behaving properly, whether there is any bleeding, is the wound healing nicely etc. etc.

One look at the last cage and I found out what had happened last evening. These were male rats! In my hurry I had picked up the wrong cage and tried to find ovaries in the males. God knows what I had removed in the name of the ovaries.

This presented a dire problem. Saraswati would come down in a few hours. If she found out that I had ovariectomized male rats, she would be suspicious of every single thing I had done thus far. What to do? I decided on the only course of action that seemed to drive away all problems.

I killed all the male rats by suffocating them on carbon dioxide. Deposited them in the cold storage for dead bodies. Picked up another cage and made sure these were female rats. Ovariectomized these rats. Put them at 37 degrees for an extended time so that the healing would be quicker. Then deposited them back where they belonged and dashed upstairs.
Saraswati did not notice any wrong doing on my part. I do know though that those 10 male rats lost there lives entirely due to my desire to hear Asha Bhonsle live.