Charles Sterling, a professor of veterinary science, said 30 young mice infected with what he described as a third world disease were among those taken.
In animal studies, he finds that mice infected with the deadly strains of bacteria all die.
The researchers then ground up the brains of the infected mice and used them to infect healthy mice.
From an investigation it was found that rediocides can prolong the survival time of mice infected by cobratoxin.
The genetic engineering involved a virus known as mousepox, which infects mice but is not known to hurt people.
The livers of the mice infected with the adenoviral vector showed reduced neutrophil activity.
Other sources of antigen have been explored, most deriving from various tissues of mice infected with Chlamydia.
For another, in a remarkable feat of genetic engineering, a team of biologists recently reconstructed the 1918 virus and used it to infect mice.
In contrast, brains from mice who are naturally infected with scrapie readily infect other mice.
One of them could be a white-footed mouse infected with the disease-causing spirochete; hence the larvae become infected.