Barbara Boyer, the widow of former neuroscientist Jeffrey H. Ware who died of brain cancer in 2011, has filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and two other researchers in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants for failing to maintain radiation-emitting equipment, to measure radiation exposure levels, and to provide protective gear during the experiment.

The university denies the allegations and describes them as 'completely without merit.'

Ware worked in the lab of Penn scientist Ann R. Kennedy to study the effects of radiation on lab animals in order to develop better ways to protect astronauts from radiation in outer space.

Kennedy is also named in the lawsuit, along with the University's medical school and the hospital.

"When we look at the documents we have so far, we see the great care taken to protect the well-being of the research animals," said Aaron Freiwald, an attorney representing the Ware family. "The tragic irony here is how poorly these researchers were protected," News works reports.

"Penn has withheld documents, withheld data on what radiation levels really were," Boyer's attorney, Freiwald, told CBS local.

The lawsuit claims that after Ware developed gliosarcoma, a form of brain cancer, he was enrolled in a trial to treat that illness with radiation. His widow claims that he could not make a uniformed decision because of his illness and two surgeries.

"Jeff just matter-of-factly said during dinner one night that he had been enrolled in a research study. He had a little bit of information, but not much," she said. "I reached out to the radiation oncologist and asked why they would enroll him in a research study without asking me."

Two other people who worked in the lab with Ware were diagnosed with lung cancer and multiple myeloma in the same time period.