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Vandal destroys protein crystals in California

lo_CC89-04.jpgA former SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory researcher who allegedly destroyed $500,000 worth of protein crystals earlier this month was arrested and charged on Monday for willfully ruining government property.

The 4,000 to 5,000 now-useless protein crystals represented a “whole variety of different samples” involved in the Protein Structure Initiative, a federally-funded project to expedite the discovery of atomic-level protein structures, says Ian Wilson, director of the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG), which oversees the initiative. Some crystals were aimed at matching three-dimensional protein structures with their corresponding DNA sequences; others were part of targeted research projects including the Human Microbiome Project and efforts to map every protein made by the bacterium Thermotoga maritima.


Wilson estimates that his research team now faces a “two- to three-month setback” to remake the protein crystals that had not yet been analyzed. “It’s basically going to take time, effort, and obviously money to redo those,” he says. But many of the lost samples cannot easily be replaced, notes Keith Hodgson, associate laboratory director for photon science at SLAC and the head of the JCSG’s structure determination unit. “Lost were materials that had been archived as well as the current samples in production,” he says in an email. The half-million-dollar price tag was based on the time it will take to replace both the crystals in active use as well as the loss of the legacy crystals that were being saved in the event of future need.

Silvya Oommachen, a former JCSG research associate, entered the SLAC facility on 18 July and removed the crystals from the freezer, according to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Matthew Quick. Two days later, researchers discovered the thawed samples on the lab bench in three cryogenic containers, each with handwritten post-it notes signed by her alter-ego “X black”. Oommachen, who didn’t show up for work after 17 June, said she was overloaded by her supervisors and felt that the vandalism would reverse some of the “bad karma” associated with her time at the lab, the affidavit says.

“Oommachen stated that she knew this act would destroy all the crystal samples by allowing them to thaw over the course of the weekend, and that this was her intention,” Quick wrote.

“It was a very unfortunate event,” says SLAC spokesman Rob Brown. “The bad news is that these samples were destroyed and it got people concerned… The good news is the [particle accelerator] beamline wasn’t affected at all and this was an isolated event.”

Oommachen’s former graduate supervisor, Michael McCallum, a biophysicist at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, says that Oommachen “was a good student,” but that she left her masters program early in 2005, before eventually joining SLAC. (SLAC officials declined to provide dates of her employment.) McCallum says he never had any problems with Oommachen but admits that he “didn’t push her really hard” and that “she might have needed more direction.”

In light of the vandalism, Brown says that the particle accelerator lab is now reviewing its internal security protocols. “The ramification of this for SLAC in terms of security and academic research, etcetera, we’re still working through that.”

Image: NIH

Comments

  1. Report this comment

    Anurag chaurasia said:

    Such worker should be punished to extreme level which will be a lesson for others not to repeat such cases. At the same time we need to distinguish intentional activity with unintentional mistakes done as human error. Anurag chaurasia ICAR India

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    Padma said:

    I think it is wise to look into reasons what prompted this action? If authorities could have corrected this then there is a moral to learn, albeit a very expensive moral.

    I think authorities should identify the reason behind and then address the issue than escalating “the security”…

  3. Report this comment

    Chris said:

    What reasons? She gave her reasons, to wit: self-absorbed, immature, and psychotic.

  4. Report this comment

    Leonard Nimoy said:

    Never had any problems with a bad karma, although I once barfed in the cryostat after a dodgy vindaloo.

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