Thousands of Lab Mice Lost In Sandy Flooding

An anonymous reader writes "While New York University's Langone Medical Center in lower Manhattan was the site of heroism as 260 patients were evacuated from flooded floors and a nearly complete loss of power, similar floods at NYU's nearby Smilow Research Building killed thousands of laboratory mice, including genetically altered specimens in-bred over many generations as research subjects for melanoma and other diseases. Other laboratory animals, cells, and living tissue used in medical research were also lost; because of the gestation period involved, some projects were likely set back a number of years. Past experience with storms such as Allison in Houston and Katrina in New Orleans has shown that keeping laboratory animals in basements is not good practice, but research institutions keep doing it anyway."

Comments

Will No One Think of the Mice?

[Phrogman]

Its stupid to keep the lab animals in the basement obviously, if only from the perspective of setting research back years as was pointed out, let alone the needless killing of thousands of animals. The basements should be kept for the adminstration staff, or at least the lawyers...

Re:Will No One Think of the Mice?

[westlake]

Its stupid to keep the lab animals in the basement obviously, if only from the perspective of setting research back years, let alone the needless killing of thousands of animals.

Manhattan real estate is expensive.

The hospital board can put income generating wards, clinics, operating rooms, cafeterias, restaurants, shops and other services on an upper floor or they can chose to house the animals there.

Research centers often stash their animal labs underground. That makes it easier to store heavy animal equipment like cage washers, autoclaves, and giant tanks of fish, and the lack of windows helps technicians control the light-dark cycle. Labs in California use basement cages to keep them safe from earthquakes, and other building managers like to have the excrement and waste sequestered down below.

Institutions like to keep their animals from public view. After all, even with the basements dry, these research centers are the site of massive rodent slaughter: The several thousand mice that drowned in Monday's flood represent just a tiny fractionâ"0.002 percent, perhapsâ"of all the mice and rats that die for research every year. It's ugly work, even when it's useful and important. Ken Kornberg, an architect who's worked on more than 400 biomedical research projects, points out that basements are more secure from activists and protesters.

Sandy's Toll on Medical Research

royal family??

[TheGratefulNet]

including genetically altered specimens in-bred over many generations

didn't know the royals were in NY during the storm.

(I kid, I kid!)

Re:royal family??

[Froboz23]

Stupid enough to post about the Tax Report article in the Dead Lab Mice discussion?

The Basement

[Anonymous Coward]

Animal research at my university was done in a nondescript building absent from the maps, with a front only about twenty feet wide (other buildings were wrapped around it). You needed a key-card to open the front door, and the building had a huge basement for cattle. The rationale for such a design is to make it difficult for animal rights extremists to break-in. I suspect other universities keep animals in the basement for the same reason.

What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?

[TigerPlish]

The thing we should've done years ago, Pinky: Move to Arizona. I hear it's dry there. *ptooie* Now shut up and keep rowing. We'll make it out of the parking lot yet.

NARRF yes, right Brain!

Basement Are Better for Isolation

[guttentag]

...keeping laboratory animals in basements is not good practice, but research institutions keep doing it anyway.

The point of keeping them in the basement is to isolate them from outside influences that might affect your results. For instance, if you put them in the building lobby, they might get malenoma from the sun, or PETA might steal them and eat them ("People Eating Tasty Animals"). Basements are better.

Re:Basement Are Better for Isolation

[MaXintosh]

This. And and unfortunately, the otherside is that administrations want to keep the 'dirty' bits of science away from where students study or alumni pay over-priced sums of money for sporting tickets. Point in case is when some animal facilities were told they had to move in Salt Lake City because they were going to be too close to the Olympic venues. They, too, got shoved in various basements.

Not just dead mice/lost research....

[Anonymous Coward]

What the news also isn't reporting, is that because of this flooding, there is all sorts of hazardous medical waste floating in the water underneath/in NYU medical center.

I would expect this to become a problem; there are millions of gallons of water which likely cannot simply be pumped out into drainage systems, and may have to be treated first, or removed for treatment at a later time.

The failure of NYU's backup systems may be one of the biggest localized issues to come out of this disaster. Time will tell,

Re:Not just dead mice/lost research....

[nEoN nOoDlE]

They could just bottle it up and sell it as homeopathic medicine.

Re:Not just dead mice/lost research....

[geekoid]

SInce it will actually have molecules of a drug, then no.

Re:I'd be MOST worried about contamination

[Cockatrice_hunter]

Most of the time you breed for genetic anomalies. Things like color-blindness, Huntington's repetitions, predeliction for cancer (cell cycle/apoptosis genes) are what are bred in. They are highly unlikely to be transmitted.

On the other hand

[oldhack]

So, mutant diseased rats in NYC sewer... what's new?

Re:I pity them

[Froboz23]

The article failed to mention that the cages of Algernon and Jonathon were found vacant.

I'm against animal testing

[PPH]

They just get nervous and give the wrong answers.