Researchers at New York University's Langone Medical Center are
working to restore their mouse colonies following their loss
during Hurricane Sandy, reports the Associated Press. The storm
caused flooding of the medical center's basement where the
animals (as well as the building's emergency generators) were
housed. Shortly after the storm, NYU neurobiologist Gordon
Fishell told the Nature News Blog that he'd lost 40 strains of
mice, or 2,500 individuals, but that his colleagues in the
region had been in touch, telling him they'd help him rebuild.
Such rebuilding is underway, the AP adds, but it will take time.
"But it's not as easy as just shipping mice to New York. The
mice at NYU live in a super-clean environment, and those
imported from other labs carry a risk of contamination," the AP
notes. "So scientists use them to create a new generation of
animals that are quarantined and checked for germs before they
enter their NYU home." Sergei Koralov says he lost about 600
mice that he was using to study geneti