I think this is the exact pitfall where a project manager cannot control the schedule, performance and a lot of details about the animal study. Most important one of them is the requirement of the animal that is appropriate for the experiment: the species, age, size, sex, health and so on. If the manager cannot monitor on the details of the animals, he/she cannot decide the authenticity of the lab data because it is hard and impractical to go somewhere 1000 miles away. Another consideration of pitfall is whether the university recommended by one of the team member really lives up to the demands of this experiment, is their personnel qualified? How much overlapped features does their direction of research share with this experiment? What about the administration delay that almost definitely will happen in the legal department? Those factors should be taken seriously for the precautions I am about to take.