Racing against the storm to save his research, Tyler Curiel
stayed in his lab at Tulane University in New Orleans during
Hurricane Katrina. He hoped to protect rare cancer cells vital to
his research, which examines immune cells and their response to
cancer and infections.
When the building began to flood, Curiel, the chief of
hematology and medical oncology at Tulane University, moved the
cells to another building with an emergency generator and then
moved them into liquid nitrogen, which would keep them from melting
for a limited time.
Though Curiel’s cells were ultimately saved, many other
experiments and data in his lab were lost, in addition to a large
amount of equipment.
“My sense is that we’ve lost millions of
dollars’ worth of research, thousands of man-hours of
research,” Curiel said in a television interview.
Hitting the Gulf Coast in late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina
damaged universities in New Orleans, delaying and in many cases
destroying research projects sponsored by the universities.
When the hurricane hit the region, some university lab buildings
and research materials were destroyed by the floods. Decade-long
experiments like Curiel’s were spoiled when data and DNA
samples in temperature-controlled rooms were ruined.
But the hurricane and its aftermath has also opened new avenues
of study ““ researchers and students alike have begun looking
at the environmental impacts of Hurricane Katrina on the region, as
well as questions relating to the levees and the rebuilding of the
area.
These new opportunities have come at the same time that other
students have lost material they were using to conduct research and
prepare dissertations. For example, Timothy Holliday, a Tulane
University law student, has begun researching levee systems in
other countries such as Holland and comparing them to the levees in
New Orleans. But Bryan Segil, a graduate student at Tulane
University, was studying ecology and environmental biology before
Hurricane Katrina hit.
The furniture in Segil’s lab office was ruined, along with
some data sheets from his original research on forest fragmentation
and its effects on tropical birds. But Segil said most of the
information was on his laptop, which he was able to retrieve. If he
had not made backup files, “it could have been a lot
worse,” he said.
At New Orleans’ Xavier University, undergraduate research
lost research labs and equipment. The primary goal now is to
rebuild research programs, said Elizabeth Ann Barron, vice
president of academic affairs at Xavier University.
“Student and faculty research is definitely affected since
there were losses and damages to research labs,” Barron
said.
While schools are making an effort to rebuild research programs,
they are also directing some new research to study the
environmental effects of Hurricane Katrina on the region.
Tulane University Law School is sponsoring a six-part series
titled “The Katrina Lecture Series,” which discusses
the ecological impact Katrina had on the local area and the
appropriate response.
The series covers topics ranging from the levee systems to
rebuilding homes and businesses in the area. They also focus on how
the city can be rebuilt in a smart and safe manner.
Timothy Holliday, a law student attending the lecture series,
said it addresses the question of whether the devastated region
should be rebuilt at all, because it is a swampland and a
marshland.
“These are areas where people shouldn’t be
living,” Holliday said.
This lecture series has led some students, such as Holliday, to
begin Katrina-related research of their own. Holliday has begun his
own research to study the levee systems in other countries such as
Holland and compare them to what was designed for New Orleans.
With reports from Bruin wire services.