Researchers Won't Let A Flood Get Them Down
"These are not just projects to them, and their work is not simply a job...." —
Ammundeep Tagore, right, a summer researcher in Yong-Jian Geng's Center for Cardiovascular Biology and Atherosclerosis Research, looks at a staining of frozen sections while Natasha Bogdanova, a research assistant, takes a microscopic look at her work. Geng's researchers, whose labs were flooded, have relocated to the Institute of Molecular Medicine to continue their work.
HOUSTON—(July 3, 2001)—Morteza Naghavi, M.D., was working in the early morning hours of June 9 at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston when floodwaters crashed through the basement and wiped out his cardiology research.
"I noticed the water was climbing up the stairs," said Naghavi, assistant professor of cardiology and director of research on plaque rupture. "I was stuck in the building. I saw what was happening, and the message was clear. We lost a lot of resources."
Naghavi had spent more than two years developing animal models and researching atherosclerosis and vulnerable plaque. All 800 mice and two dozen rats he was studying were lost in the flood.
His research team had only recently discovered that influenza caused a severe inflammation of plaque in mice with atherosclerosis.
"This severe inflammation can cause heart attack," Naghavi said. "We were on the verge of opening the whole world's eyes to this new risk factor, which is acute infection. Now we have to start all over."
For hundreds of researchers throughout the Texas Medical Center, the flood from Tropical Storm Allison was a tremendous setback in their quest to find treatments and cures for chronic and life-threatening illnesses.
But even before the water receded, Naghavi and other scientists were right back to work, recovering what they could and rebuilding the rest. UT-Houston faculty members quickly found other places to set up shop until the medical school could be reopened.
Jing Lin, M.D., and Yong-Jian Geng, M.D., Ph.D., review research at his temporary laboratory. Geng is director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology and Atherosclerosis Research.
Naghavi's staff moved to a 400-square-foot efficiency at Favrot Tower Apartments. Less than 48 hours after the flood, the staff's research website on vulnerable plaque, detection and treatment was back on line. "Researchers work, despite everything," Naghavi said, simply.
Arrangements were made to move the laboratory to The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Naghavi said he even interviewed and hired three people during the crisis.
K. Lance Gould, M.D., professor and director of the Weatherhead P.E.T. Center for Preventing and Reversing Atherosclerosis, turned his home into an office. "I began taking computers home as soon as I could get into the medical school," Gould said. "Everyone got hooked up with cell phones. At any one time, we have six people working out of my house. Everyone is chipping in--even the cat."
Gould said faculty and staff responded to the disaster with swift, innovative solutions for recovery.
"We're taking advantage of this downtime to introduce a completely automated clinical database," he said. To implement such a system normally would take a year or more. Instead it is taking a few weeks.
"The day Memorial Hermann Hospital opens, we'll be introducing a totally digital clinical system. The information will be online, and when patients call us, we will have instantaneous data on them, and the patients can get a printout."
The cyclotron that produced radio tracers for heart imaging was among the equipment destroyed in the flood. Gould said he made arrangements to use a rubidium generator so that the cardiac studies can continue.
"The flood was a disaster, but my approach to this is to turn adversity into something creative," Gould said.
Two days after the flood, Stan Stepkowski, D.V.M., Ph.D., had moved his laboratory to Texas Biotechnology Corp. and resumed testing of immunosuppressant drugs. He also used his family connection to get some workspace in his wife's molecular genetics laboratory at M. D. Anderson.
"This research is related to strategies to develop new, nontoxic immunosuppressant drugs," he said. "This could prolong the lives of people who have organ transplants, so it's very important that we continue the research, even while the medical school is closed."
Dale Hereld, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, checked research specimens in a refrigerator in his lab at UT-Houston Medical School after the power went out during the flood. Within one week, he had resumed his research in a borrowed lab at Rice University. (Photo by Patty Wood, © 2001)
Dale Hereld, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, said he was able to move his studies to a laboratory at Rice University, where scientists are doing similar research. His research focuses on how hormone receptors function in slime mold and how that relates to humans.
"These receptors are like a very large number of hormone receptors that human cells have. We use these receptors to see, to taste, to smell, to regulate our hearts and so on," Hereld said. Studying these mechanisms in slime mold may help researchers find targets for useful drugs that can treat human diseases.
Hereld said the Rice faculty and staff quickly accommodated his researchers, getting them badges, parking privileges, and, most importantly, lab space.
"Our lab was only down for a week," he said. "We are back to doing science, and we are making progress. We may not be conducting work at the usual pace, but we are benefiting from being around these other scientists, and we are getting our work done."
Yong-Jian Geng, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology and Atherosclerosis Research, said that by June 11, the Institute of Molecular Medicine had given his researchers shelter.
"We didn't stop our work. No one is staying home," Geng said. "In the scientific research field, the competition is high. We need to catch up with the competition, recover what we lost and move forward."
When the flood struck, Geng and collaborators, including UT-Houston's president James T. Willerson, M.D., were making strides in the areas of heart failure and atherosclerosis. They'd found evidence that heart stem cells transplanted into animals were developing into new vascular tissue. The findings could potentially lead to a new method for treating patients with heart failure.
Geng lost hundreds of transgenic mice, which took almost three years to develop. He also lost more than 1,000 human and animal tissue samples that he been collecting and researching for almost 15 years.
"The loss is tremendous, but my plan is to try our best to salvage what is left," Geng said. "We have to keep very good spirits and work very hard. (Heart disease) is the No. 1 killer in this country. It's extremely important that we continue our research to understand this disease on a molecular level. We can't let a flood stop that."
George M. Stancel, Ph.D., interim vice president for research, said these stories are just a few examples of UT-Houston's dedication to biomedical research and its applications to treat and prevent human disease.
"I stood outside the medical school for much of the two weeks immediately after the flood. There was a constant stream of faculty, students and technical staff going into a building without air-conditioning and walking up many flights of stairs in the dark," Stancel said. "They weren't trying to recover personal items—they were trying to save precious samples by packing dry ice into freezers without emergency power. They were taking their computers home to continue writing research papers and new proposals, or they were collecting the laboratory notebooks to analyze their data at home and plan the next round of experiments.
"Every one of them believes in what they are doing—whether it's the basic biochemical structure of a gene or protein, a new drug for the treatment of cardiovascular disease or stroke, or understanding the underlying neurological basis for a learning disorder," Stancel said. "These are not just projects to them, and their work is not simply a job. This is true dedication. They really see their work as a calling. People like this are the foundation of every great university."
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