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CNN Live At Daybreak

Baylor University Dean Discusses Loss of 30,000 Lab Animals, Years of Research to Tropical Storm Allison

Aired June 14, 2001 - 08:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: More than homes and lives were lost when Tropical Storm Allison slammed into Houston. Researchers at the renowned Baylor University lost some 30,000 lab animals and years of research -- a life's work, in some cases.

CNN's Brian Cabell reports on the attempts to recover.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Imagine the streets and sidewalks in front of Baylor College of Medicine covered with five feet of water, and you can then understand how the basement of this prestigious research institution became flooded.

Twenty-five thousand to 30,000 mice and uncounted specimens were lost in the flood, years of research destroyed or compromised.

PROFESSOR JANET BUTEL, BAYLOR RESEARCHER: We have labs that are working on HIV, the AIDS problem; Hepatitis -- Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C; Rotovirus, which causes diarrhea, that is so important worldwide. We work on viruses that cause cancer in humans.

CABELL: There are still about 100,000 research mice left. Other lab projects have been salvaged as well. But officials here estimate that about 250 faculty members and their graduate student teams lost valuable research material.

RALPH FEIGIN, PRESIDENT, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: And in some areas, I am certain that there have been specimens lost that are absolutely irreplaceable.

CABELL: It was a disaster that left researchers stunned.

PROFESSOR HOUDA ZOGHBI, BAYLOR RESEARCHER: Emotionally, if I really let the emotions take over, I would be in depression. But what I did is I gathered my lab people, and I said this is our time to think in very smart ways, to think of creative ways we can use what we have left.

CABELL: For the last few days, they've been packing many specimens in dry ice. Power is still out in some of their facilities. Other research projects that were brought home to stay dry are now returning to Baylor, and the water has finally been pumped out. Not much lab work has been conducted here lately. Just consider these Baylor employees, relief workers for the world of medical research.

(on camera): Hospital officials hope to get back to normal operations, more or less, within a month. They'll just have to make do without, potentially, years of meticulous research.

Brian Cabell, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Medical researchers at the University of Texas at Houston can feel Baylor's pain.

George Stancel is vice president for research and dean of the graduate school of biomedical sciences.

Good morning, Mr. Stancel.

GEORGE STANCEL, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: Good morning, Carol, how are you?

LIN: I'm doing just fine.

I was amazed to hear that some 10 million gallons of rainwater filled up your basement in less than half an hour.

STANCEL: That's correct. It's hard to imagine. The building has roughly 100,000 square feet on the ground floor, and you can imagine when that fills up. The estimates were 10 million gallons of water, yes.

LIN: I mention the basement because that's where most of your lab animals are located.

STANCEL: That is correct.

LIN: Almost 5,000 animals. Were you able to save any of them?

STANCEL: We were able to save some of the animals that were on the top floors, but the animals that were in the basement, unfortunately, we could not save.

LIN: What sort of loss does this represent?

STANCEL: The loss, of course, is that some of the animals took years and years to develop and to breed, these genetically engineered animals, and some of them we think we may be able to replace with time and energy and help from friends that we've sent them to around the country. In other cases, however, it may not be possible to recover the exact same animal models that we had or other agents and things lost when our freezers went out, when our computers went down, and that sort of thing.

LIN: I really relate to this on a personal level because my brother is a cancer researcher on the Yale campus, and I see him slaving day in and day out, seven days a week, 15 hour days over his experiments. What has been the reaction of the students who have lost all of their work?

STANCEL: That's a very good question. As dean, it's something that concerns me in particular. I always tell people if in you drive down a street alongside our medical center at 10:00 or 11:00 at night and you see a light in the building, that's probably a graduate student slaving away, as you've just described your brother, on his or her research. And I want to emphasize to these people this is a loss. It's tragic, the agents, the animals, the equipment.

But these, by and large, are driven young people. They see this as a calling. They're here because they want to cure the cancer you talked about, they want to cure heart disease, they want to prevent strokes. These are people that feel this is a calling, and they may be down for a little while, but knowing these people -- I've taught these young people for years -- I'm convinced many of them will come back, and they'll get right back in those labs and work harder than ever.

LIN: Mr. Stancel, are any of their graduations or degrees going to be postponed as a result of Tropical Storm Allison?

STANCEL: At this point, we really can't speak to that. We just had our graduations within the last several weeks, of all the schools in our health science center -- medical, dentistry graduates and so forth, and nursing. Fortunately, those students have just graduated.

Now, this is big concern, and many colleagues from the city, the state, and other universities in the country have actually contacted us, offered to help with our students, and we're going to try to help every one of them on a case-by-case basis, because, as you say, this has the potential to delay research that can take three or four years to do in a thesis.

LIN: At least.

Thank you very much, George Stancel, University of Texas at Houston. There's a lot of work ahead. Our hearts go out to those students.

STANCEL: Thank you, Carol. And might I say thank you to all the people who have called with their wishes and offers of help. We really appreciate that. Thank you very much to all of them.

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