Lab that drilled into monkeys’ skulls shuts down - but only after killing entire colony
UMass researchers spent more than a decade experimenting on marmosets in stress-inducing menopause studies.
Marmoset monkeys used in controversial menopause experiments in a university laboratory were killed two months before the facility shut down, according to new reports.
The University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) laboratory of Agnès Lacreuse spent more than a decade and over $6 million in federal money performing research experiments on marmosets, tiny tree-dwelling New World monkeys.
Throughout the decade, staff drilled holes in marmosets’ skulls to implant electrodes, cut into their necks, and threaded electrode wires from their scalp and neck through their abdomen, as part of the experiments, according to People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA).
The primates were also reportedly deprived of sleep, restrained for hours, blasted with loud noises, injected with hormones, confined in plastic cylinders and subjected to repeated brain scans. These tests were specifically created to force the monkeys to experience stress, confusion, and hormonal changes.
When the experiments were finished the marmosets were killed and their brains were dissected. No meaningful results were ever produced by Lacreuse’s lab, according to PETA.
PETA led a campaign against the laboratory for a number of years prior to its closure, alongside local advocates from Western Massachusetts Animal Rights Advocates and Compassionate Alliance for Nonhumans, and other national animal groups, including In Defense of Animals (IDA). Their efforts were supported by a number of celebrity advocates including actors Daisy Ridley, Cassandra Peterson, and Kate del Castillo, Casey Affleck and his mother Chris Anne Boldt.
“We were determined to close this laboratory and end the torture of these tiny monkeys and we did,” said PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Lacreuse’s reign of terror is over.”
The lab's closure follows the conclusion of a three-year lawsuit with PETA, which UMass lost in April 2025. The university was ordered to turn over all documents related to the lab and pay $50,000 in legal fees.
While UMass officials and Agnes Lacreuse, the lab’s principal investigator, cited federal defunding of research as the reason for the shutdown, PETA believes the legal victory may have accelerated its closure.
A marmoset imprisoned in Lacreuse’s laboratory. Image obtained through public records law by PETA.
“She would never want to admit that she has caused irreparable harm to animals while failing to advance science, nor would she be willing to credit PETA’s role in shutting down her lab,” PETA Chief Scientist Dr. Katherine Roe said. “Clearly, with the fiasco of her sleep disruption experiments being shifted to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for a time, only to fail there as well, Lacreuse has recognized that she has not delivered on her promises to the [National Institutes of Health] (NIH).”
When the UMass Lacreuse Lab announced its closure on its website in late July, it was unclear what would happen to the lab’s remaining marmosets. But this week, PETA revealed that all 13 surviving monkeys had been killed two months earlier in May, before the lab’s closure was made public, meaning the entire remaining colony - over 60 monkeys - were killed.
UMass confirmed this to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, stating that this was part of the National Institutes of Health requirements.
“For the monkeys who should have been retired to sanctuaries, freedom came only in the form of death,” said IDA in a statement. “While the lab’s closure marks a major win for animal advocacy, it also demonstrates why our fight is far from over. No animal should ever be tortured for an experiment that was doomed to fail from the start.”
In the United States around 200,000 dogs, cats and rabbits are used in animal experiments every year. Many of these animals that survive testing are still killed or abandoned once their research studies are concluded despite being healthy and adoptable. The Companion Animal Release from Experiments (CARE) Act would allow dogs, cats and rabbits used in these types of studies to have a second chance at life with loving adoptive families.
Although all animal testing is cruel and unnecessary this legislation would provide animals that are already in the system the opportunity to experience the love and care that all companion animals deserve while animal activists and compassionate legislators work to dismantle the corrupt system of taxpayer-funded animal-based testing.
Join Species Unite in urging Congress to pass the CARE Act to provide animal testing survivors the opportunity for a second chance at life in loving forever homes. Add your name here.
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