A power outage lasting four days at Western University in London, Ontario has resulted in the destruction of invaluable research samples, disrupted experiments, and raised concerns among biology students and faculty about the university’s ability to safeguard millions of dollars worth of scientific research assets. The Biological & Geological Sciences Building, Materials Sciences Addition, Chemistry Building, and Natural Sciences Centre have been relying on backup power since Friday following an incident at a campus power substation.
While power was restored to most buildings on Friday evening, the four affected buildings are still operating on backup power as repair work continues. The university has implemented restricted access to these buildings as a precautionary measure and is collaborating with students, faculty, and staff to address individual needs, including ensuring access for research purposes.
Students and faculty have highlighted that this is the fifth significant power outage impacting biology research facilities since August 2025. Beth MacDougall-Shackleton, a biology professor, expressed concerns about the university’s reputation, emphasizing the importance of stable power supply for maintaining research conditions critical for living organisms and temperature-sensitive materials.
The outages have led to overheating in growth chambers housing insects and plants, thawing of research samples in freezers due to inadequate backup power, and hindrances in accessing animals utilized in studies. Additionally, the department has incurred substantial costs in replacing reagents, enzymes, and other research materials.
Graduate students have suffered substantial setbacks as months or even years of work breeding insects, growing plants, and cultivating bacterial strains may have been compromised. Matheus Sanita Lima, a fifth-year PhD candidate and chair of the Society of Biology Graduate Students, emphasized the loss of irreplaceable samples, including specimens from extinct species, collections dating back to the 1970s, and materials from long-term cohort studies.
Efforts to address the situation have been met with frustration as the concerns raised by Sanita Lima, MacDougall-Shackleton, and others have not been adequately addressed by Western’s administration. Calls for improved communication during outages, modernization of the campus electrical system, and increased maintenance staffing levels have been made by the affected individuals.
The recurring outages not only pose a threat to Western’s reputation but also raise concerns about potential funding losses and jeopardizing research funding, particularly in animal-related studies regulated by the Canadian Council on Animal Care. MacDougall-Shackleton underscored the importance of Western taking proactive steps to mitigate the risks posed by the power outages and ensure the continuity of research activities.