KATRINA DESTROYS YEARS OF RESEARCH.(News) - The Cincinnati Post (Cincinnati, OH)

Byline: Charles Piller Los Angeles Times

For more than 30 years, Tulane University researchers have conducted one of the most exhaustive heart disease studies in the country, tracking the diets, habits and blood chemistry of 16,000 people in Bogalusa, La.

Then Hurricane Katrina hit. Most of the Bogalusa Heart Study's tissue samples were destroyed when freezers lost power.

'You can't just regenerate 30 or 40 years of material,' said Dr. Paul Whelton, Tulane's senior vice president for health sciences. 'A great international treasure was lost.'

Amid the damage from Hurricane Katrina, universities along the Gulf Coast are reeling from the loss of scientific research and the scattering of hundreds of scholars across the country.

Although many facilities escaped damage, the experiments within often did not fare well.

Many of Tulane's 148 research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, for example, are in a shambles, university officials said.

The scientific losses have cast a cloud over the future of the city as an educational and research hub.

'We are not UCLA. We are not an Ivy League school,' said Dr. Nicolas Bazan, head of Louisiana State University's Neuroscience Center of Excellence. 'But this is a wonderful part of the country. ... I'd like them to have faith that we will be able to regroup and continue.'

To scientists, failed freezers are Hurricane Katrina's ruinous emblem.

Bazan said the storm destroyed frozen brain tissues from scores of Alzheimer's disease patients and wiped out hundreds of unique cell cultures.

Before the storm, Bazan was seeing his dream come to life after nearly a decade of fund-raising, recruitment and research. The Neuroscience Center in New Orleans was gaining prominence with a flurry of research findings, including evidence that fish oil might combat the ravages of Alzheimer's.

LSU had agreed to build a new laboratory for his 110-member staff studying stroke, epilepsy and other brain disorders.

Now, with the campus trying to recover from massive flooding, and Hurricane Rita looming, his building is on hold.

Paul Fidel, a microbiologist and dean of research at LSU's dental school, had stored frozen samples from patients suffering from yeast infections collected over much of his career -- an exceptional biological databank.

'Fifteen years of work, gone,' he said with resignation.

Thousands of LSU's experimental animals, including unique transgenic mice, died or had to be killed -- a setback for many of its 117 NIH-funded projects.

When hospitals and labs went dark, researchers also scrambled to prevent a larger public heath disaster. LSU, Tulane and the state of Louisiana all conduct biodefense research in New Orleans in biosafety level 3 laboratories -- specially sealed facilities used for work with potential bioterrorism agents, such as the microbes that cause anthrax and plague.

None of the biosafety labs was breached by wind or water, and all were protected by layers of locked doors, officials said.

Amid the disruption, there were also signs that, barring new flooding, some researchers soon might be back at work.

Most university labs are above ground level in strong, modern buildings, so much of the equipment was unharmed.

Some biological products survived because they were stored in canisters filled with super-cold liquid nitrogen rather than electric freezers. Dozens of universities and U.S. Department of Energy labs have offered temporary offices, lab space and library privileges to displaced scientists.