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A freezer malfunction at a Harvard-affiliated hospital has damaged a third of the world's largest donated brain tissue for autism research.
A spokeswoman for Autism Speaks said it was too early to assess the impact of the loss, discovered last month at the McLean hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, but one scientist predicted it could set research on the disorder back by as much as a decade.
In all, 93 donated brains were damaged at Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC), 54 of them dedicated to autism research.
A spokeswoman for the center at McLean hospital, Adriana Bobinchock, said two investigations were under way to determine how the freezer failure happened. A third investigation was being carried out by Autism Speaks. D Francine Benes, director of the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, told the Boston Globe that the damaged brains were a "priceless collection."
www.theguardian.com
A spokeswoman for Autism Speaks said it was too early to assess the impact of the loss, discovered last month at the McLean hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, but one scientist predicted it could set research on the disorder back by as much as a decade.
In all, 93 donated brains were damaged at Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC), 54 of them dedicated to autism research.
A spokeswoman for the center at McLean hospital, Adriana Bobinchock, said two investigations were under way to determine how the freezer failure happened. A third investigation was being carried out by Autism Speaks. D Francine Benes, director of the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, told the Boston Globe that the damaged brains were a "priceless collection."
Brain tissue used to study autism destroyed by hospital freezer fault
Leading scientist says loss could set autism research back 10 years following failure of freezer at McLean hospital near Boston
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