Lab Loses Decade of Cancer Studies After Nonprofit's Bankruptcy

Lynn Hlatky has spent her career as a scientist studying the development of cancer, hoping in some way to improve understanding of an insidious disease.

She took a path common in her field: won funding, established a lab, assembled a team of colleagues and got to work.

But now, a decade of Hlatky’s work suddenly is gone. After a highly unusual chain of events, thousands of little glass tubes of cells and proteins, pieces of human tumor tissue, and other biological samples have been destroyed.

The materials fell victim to the bankruptcy of Genesys Research Institute Inc., a nonprofit that, in 2013, took control of Hlatky’s lab on the campus of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton.