History of Bio Breeders Inc.
Bio Breeders Inc. was founded by Dr. Case VanDongen in April 1985. While its corporate structure, goals and physical setting were new, certain vital components did already exist previously at Bio Research Institute, where the specialized hamster breeding colony had been developed with Dr. Case VanDongen as Director of Breeding operations since 1967.
The specialized Bio Hamster colony was started in 1957 by Dr. Freddy Homburger, president and founder of Bio Research Institute. It was modeled after a specialized colony of mice developed by the Jackson Laboratories in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Bio Research Institute ceased its operations in 1984 and that is when Dr. VanDongen decided to continue offering these invaluable hamster models to the biomedical by creating Bio Breeders Inc. in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.