NYU loses years of scientific research and thousands of mice to Hurricane Sandy

The Daily News has just learned that years of scientific research — and thousands of mice — at New York University Hospital’s Smilow building on E. 32nd St. have been lost.

Most of the power that drives the research laboratories in that building next to the FDR Drive, including emergency power, was lost at 8:30 p.m. Monday. Many precious reagents — special enzymes, antibodies, DNA strands — generated by scientists and stored at -80 degrees and -20 degrees were likely destroyed, a researcher tells the Daily News.

Scientists are in a desperate frenzy to save what they can and transfer what can be moved to other areas of the hospital. In one case, scientists were rolling a big freezer — the size of a big refrigerator — to an area of the hospital with emergency power, the source told the News.

Even more alarming, thousands of mice that are used by scientists for cancer research and other experiments, drowned during a flood. It is unclear how the mice died, but the source told the News that many of these mice are genetically modified for certain research and took years to produce. It will likely set back several scientists’ work by years, the source said.