secret Defence project?’ I said.
‘Not unless the Army’s taken to using rabbits and mice as WMDs,’ Dallas joked, standing back to allow me through a security door.
‘So what were they working on?’
‘Straightforward, non-secret, agricultural research on rabbit control,’ he said. ‘Claire and Peter started their Faithful Bunnies project about two years ago.’
‘Faithful Bunnies?’
‘It started as an experiment to alter the mating habits of rabbits.’
‘And all the research is open and available to scrutiny?’ I asked.
‘Of course. It’s a supervised project. Dr Leonie Pringle was signing it off every month.’
Immediately, the project rose in my esteem. Leonie Pringle was Emeritus Professor in the science department at our premier state university, not to mention an international legend in the world of molecular biology. She was the expert in lagomorphs—gnawing animals with large incisors top and bottom; unlike rodents—as well as leporids: rabbits and hares.
‘I know from my own experience that researchers can be very protective of their projects,’ I said, thinking of the other big motive. ‘Especially if it involves something that has the potential to make a lot of money down the track. Like rabbit eradication.’
‘I guess it could be a goldmine one day,’ Dallas said, after a pause. ‘But you could say that about any of our research. If the project is successful. And it’s always a pretty big “if”.’
I knew there were a hell of a lot of steps between doing research and then attracting the big money. Most scientific research was underfunded, so researchers had to scratch for money all the time. Until the events in Bali and Jakarta had opened the funding purse more generously, research labs had not had big budgets.
‘They might have been using potentially dangerous pathogens,’ I said.
‘Like myxomatosis and the calicivirus ?’ Dallas’s voice was derisive. ‘They’re only dangerous if you’re a leporid. Claire and Peter were working at the cutting edge of molecular design, shuffling receptors and genetic markers, encoding proteins, that kind of thing. No pathogens dangerous to humans were involved.’
‘But they were arguing,’ I reminded him, glancing down at my notebook.
‘That’s hardly a revelation. As I said, scientists are always arguing.’
I made a note to get back to that one later.
We’d stopped at a large, secured biohazard door with a warning about unauthorised entry and a sheet of Hazchem protocols affixed to it. Tanks of oxygen and fire extinguishers stood nearby, adjacent to a cleaning station where gumboots, buckets and sophisticated cleaning and antibacterial agents sat on a shelf.
‘Beyond this door is the clean room, where you can gear up, and then an airlock and a negative pressure chamber, then the lab,’ said Dallas.
‘There seems to be a great deal of security for an innocuous research project,’ I said. ‘You’re talking about a set-up demanding high levels of safety. There must have been some concern about what they were working on.’
‘Highly infectious material is handled here,’ Dallas said, ‘but it’s only dangerous if you’re a rabbit. We’re still using these old Level Four labs even though we now have the new additions—you saw the ones we walked through. We’ve got state-of-the-art Levels Three and Four safety rooms in the new wing, so the old hot suites in this building are used for routine work. We can’t afford to have any of our facilities lying idle.’
‘Anyone else use this lab?’ I asked.
‘Claire and Peter have had exclusive use of it for the last two years. Apart from Claire’s PhD student who’s sometimes here.’ He pulled out a photocopied building map. ‘This is the layout inside the lab,’ he said, passing it to me. ‘You might find it helpful when you go in.’
‘I’d better have the name of Dr Dimitriou’s student.’
‘I can’t think of it just now. I’ll look it up and
‘Not unless the Army’s taken to using rabbits and mice as WMDs,’ Dallas joked, standing back to allow me through a security door.
‘So what were they working on?’
‘Straightforward, non-secret, agricultural research on rabbit control,’ he said. ‘Claire and Peter started their Faithful Bunnies project about two years ago.’
‘Faithful Bunnies?’
‘It started as an experiment to alter the mating habits of rabbits.’
‘And all the research is open and available to scrutiny?’ I asked.
‘Of course. It’s a supervised project. Dr Leonie Pringle was signing it off every month.’
Immediately, the project rose in my esteem. Leonie Pringle was Emeritus Professor in the science department at our premier state university, not to mention an international legend in the world of molecular biology. She was the expert in lagomorphs—gnawing animals with large incisors top and bottom; unlike rodents—as well as leporids: rabbits and hares.
‘I know from my own experience that researchers can be very protective of their projects,’ I said, thinking of the other big motive. ‘Especially if it involves something that has the potential to make a lot of money down the track. Like rabbit eradication.’
‘I guess it could be a goldmine one day,’ Dallas said, after a pause. ‘But you could say that about any of our research. If the project is successful. And it’s always a pretty big “if”.’
I knew there were a hell of a lot of steps between doing research and then attracting the big money. Most scientific research was underfunded, so researchers had to scratch for money all the time. Until the events in Bali and Jakarta had opened the funding purse more generously, research labs had not had big budgets.
‘They might have been using potentially dangerous pathogens,’ I said.
‘Like myxomatosis and the calicivirus ?’ Dallas’s voice was derisive. ‘They’re only dangerous if you’re a leporid. Claire and Peter were working at the cutting edge of molecular design, shuffling receptors and genetic markers, encoding proteins, that kind of thing. No pathogens dangerous to humans were involved.’
‘But they were arguing,’ I reminded him, glancing down at my notebook.
‘That’s hardly a revelation. As I said, scientists are always arguing.’
I made a note to get back to that one later.
We’d stopped at a large, secured biohazard door with a warning about unauthorised entry and a sheet of Hazchem protocols affixed to it. Tanks of oxygen and fire extinguishers stood nearby, adjacent to a cleaning station where gumboots, buckets and sophisticated cleaning and antibacterial agents sat on a shelf.
‘Beyond this door is the clean room, where you can gear up, and then an airlock and a negative pressure chamber, then the lab,’ said Dallas.
‘There seems to be a great deal of security for an innocuous research project,’ I said. ‘You’re talking about a set-up demanding high levels of safety. There must have been some concern about what they were working on.’
‘Highly infectious material is handled here,’ Dallas said, ‘but it’s only dangerous if you’re a rabbit. We’re still using these old Level Four labs even though we now have the new additions—you saw the ones we walked through. We’ve got state-of-the-art Levels Three and Four safety rooms in the new wing, so the old hot suites in this building are used for routine work. We can’t afford to have any of our facilities lying idle.’
‘Anyone else use this lab?’ I asked.
‘Claire and Peter have had exclusive use of it for the last two years. Apart from Claire’s PhD student who’s sometimes here.’ He pulled out a photocopied building map. ‘This is the layout inside the lab,’ he said, passing it to me. ‘You might find it helpful when you go in.’
‘I’d better have the name of Dr Dimitriou’s student.’
‘I can’t think of it just now. I’ll look it up and
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