Tanner Michael Fullmer: Mouse Surgeon

Tanner is working in a lab where they are studying heart attacks; like if having multiple small heart attacks decreases the likelihood that a larger one will be fatal, rather than only having a severe MI first; or they have diabetic mice and they create heart attacks and see if insulin has any effect on the death of heart tissue in MI. It is so freaking cool! So Tanner begins by catching a wee mouse by the tail, then injecting it with heparin. After it has time to circulate, he then catches it again and injects it with anesthetic. He has to leave it alone until it falls asleep by itself, otherwise, they never go to sleep. After it's out, he lays it on its back and uses tweezer things to pull up the skin over the thorax, then snips off the skin. Then he can see the diaphragm and he actually cuts open the diaphragm to view the heart, rather than through the chest so they don't risk damaging it. He has to be really careful because he has to remove it while it's still beating, so he carefully cuts it, then quickly stretches the aorta and hangs it from a cannula, which is hard to see in the picture cause it's so small, but it is hanging from it and some nutritious solution is running through it that mimics blood..yeah, that heart is still beating up there. Then they stop the solution in parts of the heart and create a heart attack like it talked about before. I just found this whole thing fascinating, and Tanner is so excited, it's such a neat opportunity. Isn't that awesome????