Dwarf pigs, also known as minipigs, are often used for laboratory purposes, testing innovative techniques for performing abdominal surgery on animals. Practicing similar tests and the National Center for Medical Research named after Meshalkin, located in Novosibirsk. Piglets for experiments were delivered to the center from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“Until today, minipigs who underwent surgical intervention on the basis of the medical center were euthanized at the end of the tests,” experts say. “However, now, starting from the first days of 2019, pigs will not be euthanized, but sent to the farm at the Institute - the very one where they were born.”

The rehabilitation of the pigs, which will be returned home, will be carefully monitored by both employees of the Institute and specialists of the Meshalkin medical center.

Note that during 2018, about 50 minipigs took part in the test operations of the medical center. Their brothers, who will be at the disposal of the experts of the medical center in 2019, will be much more lucky - more than six months after the operation, the pigs will go not to the side of oblivion, but back to the farm at the Research Institute of Cytology and Genetics.