Blog 11

“Sandy destroys years of valuable medical research”

Summary:

Super storm Sandy has but years of research in jeopardy. Research in heart disease, cancer and neuro-degeneration was at New York University on Monday when the generators malfunctioned and the center was flooded. The hospital evacuated about 300 patients to near-by hospitals however they were not able to save the specimens from the lab, which were mice. These mice had specific strands of DNA that were being researched and modified in efforts to stop global diseases. Any of those mice could have held the key to a major biomedical break through. Dr. Krogsgaard, a cancer biologist said “All the work we did, all the time and money, we’re going to have to start all over.” The scientists who lost years of their work are devastated over the loss. For some of them this means there work will never get published, and they won’t be able to receive grants for their research. Storm Sandy has disrupted the global, biomedical field.

My Analysis:

This is a potential disaster for biomedical research. Science, especially bio-science, is a very complex field of study. If one part of a million piece research puzzle is destroyed the entire project is ruined. If one of those mice held the key to curing cancer, then that research is gone and could take years and years to get there again. In the article it said that it was possible some of the scientists kept sperm and embryo specimens from their mice, however it would not be all of them and it would still take time to reproduce those mice. They made modifications to the genes that are unique to a particular mouse and will be extremely difficult to reproduce. So no matter what this storm has put the research at NYU back. The goal now will be to try to replace the mice as closely and quickly as possible in order to catch up on years of lost research.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/08/health/sandy-research-time/index.html?hpt=he_c2

11/9/12

11:24am