Damages by hurricanes Irma and María to our laboratories.

Due to hurricanes Irma and Maria, our main laboratories at the Julio Garcia Diaz (JGD) building at the UPR-RP campus were flooded. The damages to the JGD Building’s generator caused a significant loss of materials and equipment. Our laboratory at JGD building has remained closed since Maria slammed Puerto Rico on September 19-20, 2017 due to the significant infrastructure damage caused to the roof of this JGD building. One week after Maria’s destructive path, my research group was relocated to the Molecular Science Research Center (MSRC) for continuing the production of nAChR crystals in accordance with the original research plan. We also lost a large number of nAChR crystals (>150 protein crystals) a few days before our last trip to Argon Photon Source (APS) on December 16, 2017, due to electrical damage to our crystal incubator. The entire electrical grid in Puerto Rico was devastated by hurricane Maria and during recovery of the grid, the recurrent power failures have caused significant damage to many instruments in our laboratory.