Dogs Starved, Sliced Open, and Killed in UMass Chan Experiments; PETA Urges Chancellor to Act

For Immediate Release:
February 17, 2026

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Worcester, Mass. –

In a letter sent today, PETA urges University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan) Chancellor Michael F. Collins to remove experimenter Matt Gounis from his position as Chair of the school’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and instruct the committee to revoke approval of his invasive, painful, and deadly experiments on dogs.

Gounis chairs the committee that is supposed to ensure compliance with animal welfare regulations, while simultaneously conducting experiments and engaging in practices that appear to violate those regulations. In addition to this conflict of interest, Gounis may have undue influence over other committee members.

Dogs used in Gounis’s experiments are subjected to multiple invasive surgeries.

Experimenters cut into and manipulate blood vessels in the dogs’ necks to create artificial aneurysms. The dogs then endure up to five additional procedures in which experimenters cut into their thighs, access the femoral artery, insert equipment, and subject them to prolonged invasive imaging—causing agonizing pain and distress—before killing them

PETA filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in December and filed a veterinary complaint last month, based on whistleblower reports and evidence. The complaints allege that the dogs used in Gounis’s experiments were deliberately underfed to keep their body weight at or below 19 kilograms (41.9 pounds), the threshold above which state and federal law require that they be housed in larger cages. Laboratory records and photographs show that the dogs’ ribs were visible, and their hipbones protruded.

A dog was subjected to painful, invasive surgeries at UMass Chan, while allegedly deliberately underfed to keep her body weight below thresholds that would require the university to provide a larger kennel. Credit: PETA

“While Matt Gounis repeatedly restrains, slices open, bleeds, starves, and confines terrified dogs to barren laboratory cages, he also leads the very committee meant to prevent such suffering,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “PETA urges Chancellor Collins to remove Gounis as Chair and end his cruel and unethical experiments before more dogs are terrorized and killed.”

UMass Chan has a long history of animal welfare violations, including citations for critical violations of federal animal welfare laws and an official warning after experimenters continued subjecting a pig to multiple cardiac procedures for days, even after he was observed “lying down, lethargic,” and exhibiting signs of poor circulation. He was later found dead in his cage.

PETA encourages everyone to urge UMass Chan to modernize its research program by switching from outdated experiments on animals to state-of-the-art, human-relevant methods.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.