( TIME.com ) -- Another victim of superstorm Sandy 's devastation in New York : laboratory animals representing years of critical medical research . When the New York University ( NYU ) Langone Medical Center lost power as Sandy buffeted New York on Monday night , the back-up generators malfunctioned and the hospital was forced to evacuate around 300 patients to neighboring hospitals . The patients were saved , but the power outage left one of the medical center 's animal research facilities in the dark , and the New York Daily News reported that thousands of laboratory mice may have drowned , resulting in the loss of years of research , cell cultures and tissues that had to be abandoned in failing incubators . The Smilow Research Center , one of NYU 's three animal research facilities , lost unique strains of mice when the power outage restricted access to the 13th floor research center , ABC News reported . The center held specimens critical to NYU scientists ' research in heart disease , cancer and neurodegeneration . The center `` was adversely impacted by the severity of the flood surge and the speed with which it came on , '' according to a statement from the NYU Langone Medical Center . `` Animal resource staff was on site continuously to mitigate the damage from the storm , but due to the speed and force of the surge , animal rescue attempts were unsuccessful . '' TIME.com : Lessons from storm Sandy : When hospital generators fail . Dr. Michelle Krogsgaard , a cancer biologist at the center , told ABC News that she and her colleagues were allowed into the lab to rescue whatever they could from the failing fridges . `` We could lose everything we 've done since I started at NYU six years ago , '' she told ABC . `` All the work we did , all the time and money , we 're going to have to start all over . '' Other New York City research institutions like The Rockefeller University did not lose power , nor valuable research , but the scientists sympathize with the NYU researchers ' loss . `` We feel badly for the mice and for the science that was disrupted and The Rockefeller University is obviously committed to helping NYU scientists in this difficult time , '' says Ravi Tolwani , the associate vice president and senior director at The Rockefeller University 's Comparative Bioscience Center , which is involved in the care of the institute 's research animals . TIME.com : How disasters bring out our kindness . As for what was comprised , Tolwani says that most institutions like Smilow and Rockefeller base their biomedical research on mice , since the animals are relatively easy to manipulate genetically . This makes them an ideal model for understanding the biology of human genetic defects . `` When we modify mice to modify genes , those modifications made are unique to that specific mouse strain . That may be the only mouse strain that 's available for a specific genetic defect in the world , '' says Tolwani . `` Those mice are not replaceable , or they 're not very easy to replace . The effort to actually generate those mice is lost , and whatever science has been done on those mice is stopped . '' Not only is years worth of research potentially lost for the NYU scientists , but it will also take years to recover their work with new mice . To make new strains with the appropriate modifications can take anywhere from one to two years , and the researchers must breed a significant amount of the mice to replicate their studies . `` It 's devastating , '' says Tolwani . `` Science is a very competitive field , and it is rapidly advancing . Even reproducing those strains and having to wait to use them is devastating to their science because research advances very quickly . You can imagine that scientists ' lives are actually disrupted . '' TIME.com : Breast milk during the storm : With power gone , moms safeguard their stash . For many researchers and students working on their doctorates and dissertations , their work and projects are now in jeopardy . Without their specimens , researchers will have difficulty getting published and receiving grants for their work . As NBC News reports , it is possible the NYU scientists shared their mice with other institutions who requested the mice for collaborative study , in which case some of the strains may be recovered in a relatively short time . However , Tolwani says for more recent and unpublished studies , this is unlikely . `` Before the science on these mice is published , there will not be as much sharing . I would guess that the majority of the mice were not shared with other investigators . Therefore those mouse strains were lost , '' he says . It 's possible that the NYU researchers preserved sperm and embryos from their lab mice , which could make recovering any unique strains slightly easier , but even that may take time and put the researchers further behind . The effects of Sandy , it seems , will be felt long after the floods have receded and the power comes back on . TIME.com : Storm Sandy closed schools , but were officials too eager to cancel class ? This story was initially published on TIME.com . Storm destroys valuable medical research . & copy 2012 TIME , Inc. TIME is a registered trademark of Time Inc. Used with permission .
Mice representing samples of research reportedly died as NYU temporarily cut power . Among the losses was a unique strain of mice critical to research . Making new strains could take up to two years .