Cells

Much has been written and discussed recently about Henrietta Lacks, the African-American woman from Baltimore whose cancer cells, collected for research 60 years ago -- as she was being treated for the cervical cancer that took her life --inexplicably but astoundingly grew in the laboratory without end. The cells, named HeLa, have contributed to cancer therapies, the polio vaccine and a myriad of other biomedical advances. Sadly, in 1951, tissue from patients destined exclusively for biomedical research -- and not, for example, to diagnose or treat disease -- was commonly taken without their consent, stored and used by scientists.

Alan Gross, the Potomac man serving 15 years in Cuba after carrying communications equipment into the communist island nation, continues to communicate with supporters from the military hospital where he is held. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington said Monday that Gross called to express his gratitude for the efforts of the Jewish community to push for his release. "I worked many years to reinforce the concept of community and I really feel it," Gross, 63, said during the telephone call last week, according to the council.

Doctors and researchers involved in embryonic-stem-cell experiments in Maryland and nationwide fear that potentially life-saving discoveries are being jeopardized by a judge who has blocked federal funding for such research. Grants from a state fund for stem-cell research are not affected, but federal research funds that flow to institutions such as the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University would be cut off. That could affect a $500,000 experiment conducted by researchers in labs at both universities.

A Columbia-based biotechnology company said this week it received the world's first government approval to market a stem cell drug , in Canada. Osiris Therapeutics, founded in 1992, spent 17 years developing a stem cell therapy that offers anti-inflammatory and tissue-regeneration properties. The first treatment it has received approval for this week will help treat children who've received bone marrow transplants that their bodies have rejected. The condition, known as acute graft-versus-host disease, or GvHD,  is fatal to 80 percent of the children who contract it, the company said.  C. Randal Mills, president and CEO of Osiris, said in a conference call Friday morning that the company has spent the past eight years navigating clinical trials and regulatory paperwork in a mission to be the first approved stem cell treatment in the world.  “During the past eight years, we have not wavered from that mission,” Mills said.

With the financial backing of the Vatican, University of Maryland researchers will lead an international group of scientists to study adult stem cells from the intestines with the hope of discovering treatments for diseases while bypassing the ethical debates that have embroiled such research for a decade. The partnership, known as the International Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium, brings together researchers from the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Maryland; the University of Salerno, Bambino Gesu — an Italian children's hospital; and the Istituto Superiore di Sanita — the Italian equivalent of the National Institutes of Health.

Scientists in the U.S. and Japan have converted human skin cells into stem cells like the ones found in embryos, a breakthrough that could yield regenerative therapies without igniting the ethical debates that have embroiled the field for nearly a decade. Yesterday's announcements raise the possibility that cells taken from sick patients could be reprogrammed and used to repair tissues damaged by heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses. The technique, achieved earlier this year in mice, holds two potential advantages.

For the first time, living cells from humans have been transplanted successfully into mice, scientists reported yesterday, suggesting that it may become possible to do the opposite, using animal organs to cure human diseases.By treating the human cells, "masking" them from the mouse's immune system, Dr. Denise Faustman said, she and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston were able to implant the cells without rejection and without using drugs to suppress the rodents' normal immunity.

A former National Institutes of Health scientist found in an unusual court case to have intentionally killed genetically engineered living cells out of apparent jealousy toward a colleague has been ordered to pay damages to the federal government.The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Peter Messitte was hailed yesterday by the U.S. attorney's office for Maryland as an important step in a relatively new area of law -- the development of genetically engineered organisms."The case is highly unusual in that it is one of the first to address the legal question of whether genetically engineered living cells are property protected from intentional harm by federal law," the U.S. attorney's office said.

What's all the excitement about biotechnology? It is about being able to manipulate the cellular machinery of life to create products of value: pharmaceuticals and diagnostics.Until the mid-1970s, this cellular machinery, which works the same way for all living things, was really a black box. It didn't lend itself to manipulation.If you think of the human being as a computer, the extremely long molecule called DNA that is contained in every one of our cells is like the software system. It works like a hard disk on a computer, and it contains all the information that your body will ever use in its lifetime.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have observed that abnormally high levels of aluminum produce toxic changes in animal brain cells -- changes that may suggest a link between the metal and human diseases of the brain, such as Alzheimer's.But Dr. Harvey Singer, a Hopkins neurologist, said yesterday that the experiment doesn't answer long-festering suspicions that aluminum causes Alzheimer's and a host of other brain disorders. Further research, he said, is needed before consumers should consider discarding their aluminum pots and pans.

Maryland's highest court has upheld a law allowing police to listen in on cell phone calls that suspects make outside the state, a tool that authorities say is key to fighting the drug trade. The 5-2 Court of Appeals ruling is a victory for law enforcement, said Brian Kleinbord, chief of criminal appeals division for the Maryland Attorney General's Office. "It means that drug dealers can't evade a wiretap by driving their cars across the state line. " But dissenters argued that multi-state wiretaps are the latest example of police using advances in technology to chip away at privacy rights.

The case before the Maryland Court of Appeals is straightforward. Detectives in Montgomery County got a warrant to intercept cell phone calls of a suspected drug dealer. They caught him in the act and made an arrest, finding marijuana in his suitcase. A jury convicted the man and he was sentenced to five years in prison. But he argued that the cops exceeded their authority. The telephone conversation the cops picked up was placed in Virginia, and was made to another man in another state.

West Belvedere Avenue 2500 block, between 9 and 9:30 a.m. April 26. Wallet with ID and cash stolen from Blue Point Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Man left wallet in sweatshirt pocket in his room while he went to bathroom and returned to find wallet missing. Croydon Road 100 block, between 2:30 and 2:45 p.m. Aril 23. Copper drainpipe stolen from outside of house. Derby Manor Drive 3800 block, between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. April 27. 40-inch Toshiba TV, Kindle Fire, 32-inch Vizio TV stolen from residence.

A loaded handgun was found in a holding cell in a Baltimore police station this week, officials confirmed after receiving inquiries from The Baltimore Sun.  The weapon, a .22 caliber handgun with six rounds in the chamber, was found by an officer as he was placing a suspect into a cell in the Southeastern District station on March 12, according to a report provided by police. The officer had entered the detainee's information in a station log book, then walked into the cell to hand back a driver's license when he noticed a black knit glove lying on a shelf.

A Maryland man who became the second person in the world to have a synthetic windpipe transplant died Monday, nearly four months after having the rare operation done in Sweden. His mother, Dorne Lyles, said Tuesday that her son died at Franklin Square Hospital. He was 30. The cause of death is unclear. Christopher Lyles, a Department of Defense engineer from Abingdon, turned to the surgery after doctors determined a tumor on his trachea was inoperable and he had late-stage cancer.

I read with interest Glenn McNatt 's editorial about the use of cell-phone video to document historic events in Syria ("The YouTube war," Feb. 25). His editorial was a significant one and deserves to be expanded into a series exploring the uses of new media in global conflict. Mr. NcNatt's piece hearkens back to the best kind of writing that is the heritage of your newspaper. The revolutions occurring in the Arab world are profound. I believe that the use of non-professional video by those who are intimately involved in these struggles will be counted as one of the most important uses of new media.

The Maryland Penitentiary was quiet yesterday as 30 inmates agreed to leave the tent city in the prison's recreation yard and move into empty cells in the west wing, a prison spokesman said.Sgt. Gregory M. Shipley, spokesman for the state Division of Correction, said about 200 inmates remained in the yard yesterday, as corrections officers, about 20 boot-camp inmates and four police dogs scoured cells in C Dormitory searching for a second gun used in Wednesday's standoff. One gun has been found.

A studious young man with an aptitude for computers, Majid Shoukat Khan was working as a database administrator in a high-rise office building in Tysons Corner, Va., on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. After American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the western face of the Pentagon, the recent Owings Mill High School graduate watched from his office window as the smoke rose over the capital. Osama bin Laden would claim credit for the attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad would boast of planning them.

A man whose escape from a holding cell in the District Court building in Annapolis prompted a door-to-door manhunt pleaded guilty Monday to escape and burglary charges. Bonrick Lee Barksdale, 25, was sentenced to four years in prison by Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge William C. Mulford III, under a plea agreement. Part of the sentence will be concurrent with the 18-month sentence he's already serving for probation violations, and part will be added. A former Annapolis and Glen Burnie resident, he also is facing attempted murder, kidnapping and related charges in North Carolina.