I agree about the $25K part. I fail to see how they plan to achieve anything when a single vial of ultra purified drug API or even dendrimer will see you back a few thousand dollars.
I mean their intentions are great but I get the feeling they're yet to experience the crushing and pessimistic realities of scientific and especially pharmaceutical/neurobiological research. It's a depressign world for us sometimes.
Edit: In review, I would be very interested to read about how they were given permission to experiment on mice. Filling out the paperwork just to get ethical approval alone is a daunting task.
$25k for a single experiment is possible. I've applied to the national science foundation for a single experiment and my budget (along with funds for me to present the data at a conference (~$1500) was around $12k as we had most of the stuff I needed already.
This lab is already established, they just need some extra funds to run this specific experiment (from what I've read).
Re: mouse work. I'm assuming they already have the facilities to run these experiments...especially at Princeton. If they don't, I'm sure a neighboring lab has the mice/protocols to run this experiment and they will/can cola berate. They write up an IACUC protocol, go through a few bouts of revisions and they should be able to run the experiment. This would be a simple protocol as they are just injecting mice with the drug, this isn't out of the ordinary by any means.
I mean their intentions are great but I get the feeling they're yet to experience the crushing and pessimistic realities of scientific and especially pharmaceutical/neurobiological research. It's a depressign world for us sometimes.
Edit: In review, I would be very interested to read about how they were given permission to experiment on mice. Filling out the paperwork just to get ethical approval alone is a daunting task.