We've got a couple of doozies for you this week. These guys are so nasty that they make some of our previous contestants look like lightweights—amateur torturers. Mere Igors to their Frankensteins. But first, a word on our latest winner: After taking a commanding lead early on, Robert Rucker beat out his colleague by a margin of 11 votes to 5 to become this week's Vivisector of the Week! Let's hope this rout at the polls doesn't cause a rift between the two UC Davis colleagues. The pair of them are obviously insecure enough as it is, given that they both feel a need to spend their days picking on helpless mice...

But onward and upward! This week's theme is "craniotomies," and we've got two contenders for you who share a lust for drilling into live animals' skulls. So hold your breath, shield your eyes, and get ready to cast your vote for this week's Vilest Vivisector! [Warning: Do not read this entry while eating your lunch]

Jeffrey Schall, Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt/Creative Commons We talked a bit about Jeffrey Schall yesterday, but his truly extensive experience abusing animals makes him a perfect choice to represent his kind in this week's showdown. According to our sources, Schall's résumé includes such noteworthy achievements as drilling into monkeys' skulls without anaesthesia, and threatening individuals on his university's staff for reporting veterinary emergencies in his labs. In addition to these little bouts of sadism, Schall likes to withhold water from his victims—which proved to be the end of one monkey named Lil' Wayne. For his troubles, Schall has been cited for 13 different violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Cast your vote now to add one more accolade to Jeffrey Schall's foul record!

Hagai Bergman, Hebrew University. Hugi/Creative Commons It'll take a real nasty piece of work to beat out Jeffrey Schall this week, but Hagai Bergman and his team are up to the job. One of the HU vivisectors summed up their work torturing a monkey named Malish with this touching sentiment: “We did all kinds of nonsense, simply so we can do something." This "nonsense" involved drilling holes into monkeys' skulls, dripping oxygen water into them, fixing their heads to chairs, and keeping them standing for a whole day after surgery. The only good news is that Malish himself is now recovering from his ordeal in a sanctuary, but Hagai Bergman is still busy as ever with his drill! If you're not sure whether Hagai deserves your vote, check out the video footage of his handiwork here.

That's it for this week. Don't forget to cast your vote, and check back with us next time* when we'll be looking at a pair of young scholars who were positively born to maim!

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

In 2006, a whistleblower at Vanderbilt University tipped PETA off to reports that a Vanderbilt experimenter named Jeffrey D. Schall was performing brain surgery on unanesthetized macaque monkeys. The whistleblower also forwarded us an email that had been sent to the department that included what was essentially a friendly reminder to researchers not to forget about anesthesia before drilling into these terrified animals' heads.

Vanderbilt has been on our radar for a long time, and Schall has long been known in the animal protection community as one of the most vile torturers in the business. In 2005, Vanderbilt was cited for 13 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, and Schall was suspended for a month after performing an unauthorized surgery and withholding water from a monkey. One monkey, called Lil' Wayne, died after seven days without anything to drink. In a separate incident, Schall threatened an animal care technician for reporting to the university veterinarian that an animal's collar had become entangled with the bottom bars of the cage, where he had become trapped.

We have been working for some time now to expose Vanderbilt's abysmal animal welfare record, and I will keep you updated as this case progresses. In the meantime, please take a moment to contact Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos at this e-mail address to request that Schall be be asked to resign. It won't solve all the problems at Vanderbilt, but it’d be a start.

Click here to read more about this case in Vanderbilt's paper.