This article was updated at 10:15 p.m. ET

New York University Hospital has reportedly lost thousands of laboratory mice to Hurricane Sandy, a research setback that could take years to correct, according to scientists.

One of the university's three animal research facilities, the Smilow building, "was adversely impacted by the severity of the flood surge and the speed with which it came on," according to a statement released Wednesday (Oct. 31) by 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," according to the statement.

The New York Daily News initially reported the loss, citing an unnamed source who also said power failure in the building took out freezers and refrigerators, likely destroying other biological research materials.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of these animals' lives and the impact this has on the many years of important work conducted by our researchers," NYU officials said in the statement. Other scientists contacted by LiveScience agreed the consequences for medical research could be far-reaching.

"It's really, really devastating," said Jacco van Rheenen, a medical physicist at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands who has worked with laboratory mice. The problem may go beyond NYU, van Rheenan told LiveScience.

"Some mice are unique, they're just made for certain research," he said. "So if [the researchers] didn't send it out to other labs, that line is just lost." [On the Ground: Hurricane Sandy in Images]

Making a lab mouse

Mice can breed several times a year, and they reach maturity quickly. But that doesn't mean that it's easy to keep a colony of lab mice going. Scientists use genetic engineering techniques to create and breed what are called transgenic mice strains where certain genes are "knocked out" or otherwise altered so researchers can pinpoint genetic variables in development and disease.

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Sandy Wiped Out NYU Lab Mice, Dealing Blow to Medical Research

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