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Years Of Human Genome Data Lost In UCSC Fire

Posted by timothy on from the no-backups-at-ben-stein's-alma-mater dept.

dsavitsk links to a New York Times article which reports that several years of data related to the human genome project have been lost in a fire at the University of California at Santa Cruz, seemingly with no backup.

3 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Read the damn art, data NOT lost!!! by karrde · · Score: 5, Informative

    The data was not what was lost. It's the actuall genetic strains that have been cultivating over the past 14 years. The lead of the project says that it may take that long to re-generate the same strains...

    1. Re:Read the damn art, data NOT lost!!! by Otter · · Score: 3, Informative
      ...which seem to be strains of yeast. Judging from the lab's page, the connection to the Human Genome Project seems pretty tenuous. It's another yeast genomics lab, with a greater than usual interest in surfing judging by their web cams. I feel bad for them, but this sort of thing does happen -- I lost some samples in the Northridge earthquake and the Allison flooding caused catastrophic damage to the mouse research at UT.

      The original story was off base enough, but Slashdot managed to blow it far more out of proportion. Yes, the human genome sequence is backed up, securely and globally.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  2. The Article by bihoy · · Score: 2, Informative

    January 13, 2002
    Years of Data Lost in Fire at University
    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    [S] ANTA CRUZ, Calif., Jan. 12 (AP) -- A fire tore through university laboratories here and destroyed genetic research that took years to develop, officials said today.

    The fire began early Friday and destroyed the top floor of a laboratory at the University of California at Santa Cruz. It later flared up twice more and destroyed the interior of a second laboratory, said Charles Hernandez, the university's fire chief.

    Prof. Manuel Ares Jr., chairman of the Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology Department, said, "It's a devastating situation," and added, "I don't know how far it has set me back."

    He said many of the genetic strains in his laboratory had taken 14 years to develop and could take that long to replace. His work was related to the Human Genome Project, a national effort to identify the tens of thousands of genes in human DNA.

    Chief Hernandez said the building did not have a sprinkler system because it was built in 1987, before fire codes required one.

    The cause