Medical Research

Unless Congress acts, America may lose its leadership in biomedical science. Federally-funded biomedical research has greatly improved our quality of life. Diseases that were once a death sentence are now treatable. Federal research funding also bolsters Maryland's economy. The National Institutes of Health sent Maryland over a billion dollars ($1,687,675,636) in 2011 for research and training. These NIH grants create jobs and stimulate economic growth in our communities. However, under last year's Budget Control Act, automatic budget cuts will take effect in January unless Congress acts now. This would cut NIH's research budget by up to 11 percent.

Anthony "A.J. " Williams works in science by day and in the sweet science by night. He's accustomed to the good-natured verbal jabs he takes about his pursuit of a boxing career. "They actually just make jokes about it all day every day," the 26-year-old fighter said of his colleagues at Parexel International, a bio/pharmaceutical services organization, where he works as a research technician in Baltimore. "When I was an amateur, I had to be clean-shaved. So I came into work with a pencil mustache looking like I was someone's father.

HOW SHOULD Maryland spend roughly $150 million a year in blood money from the tobacco industry? That could become a bitterly divisive issue between now and early April, when the legislature gives final approval to the governor's budget.Every interest group will be lobbying for a slice of this Christmas gift from cigarette makers. Every legislator and the governor will have ideas on how to dispose of the money.Republicans already are talking about -- what else? -- tax cuts. Gov. Parris N. Glendening is talking about using the money to reduce class sizes, renovate schools and give free health care to children.

Albert Einstein was 26 when he published his Special Theory of Relativity; James Watson, at age 25, explained the structure of DNA. Here in Baltimore, many great medical achievements were developed by early-career researchers at Johns Hopkins. "The young do not know enough to be prudent," said Pearl Buck. "They attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation. " Today's young American scientists are no less inspired but are discouraged by a perceived lack of opportunity after long, grueling years of training.

For years, medical research in Baltimore was synonymous with the Johns Hopkins University. However, as new figures released by the University of Maryland, Baltimore show, Baltimore is fast becoming a two-team town in the big leagues of medical research. Last fiscal year, the professional schools of UMB, led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine, brought in about $305 million in research funding - about 20 percent more than UMB received the year before, and nearly triple the $103 million it attracted eight years ago. The increase means that UMB is rapidly closing the gap with Hopkins, which received $368 million in federal and private research funding for its medical school, and an additional $180 million for its public health school, in the 2001 fiscal year, the last period for which Hopkins has totals.

The Johns Hopkins University, Kennedy Krieger Institute and University of Maryland filed court briefs yesterday asking the state's highest court to reconsider an Aug. 16 ruling that imposed restrictions on medical research involving children. The universities warned that the Maryland Court of Appeals ban on enrolling minors in nontherapeutic studies that involve risk to the subjects would "cripple the pursuit of critical medical and public health research," according to a statement released by the parties.

Albert Einstein was 26 when he published his Special Theory of Relativity; James Watson, at age 25, explained the structure of DNA. Here in Baltimore, many great medical achievements were developed by early-career researchers at Johns Hopkins. "The young do not know enough to be prudent," said Pearl Buck. "They attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation. " Today's young American scientists are no less inspired but are discouraged by a perceived lack of opportunity after long, grueling years of training.

For decades, residents of the poor neighborhood surrounding Johns Hopkins Hospital have had an uneasy relationship with the billion-dollar institution at its center. They viewed it as elitist, more interested in medical research than in their care. While the hospital has worked to enhance relations, spending millions on community support and to serve poor patients, recent controversy over a study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Kennedy Krieger Institute has illuminated historical tensions.

Many people have heard of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg or Google co-founder Sergey Brin. But few know about Bert Vogelstein, a Johns Hopkins scientist who helped map the cancer genome and created gene and stool tests to detect colon cancer. A new, international award, similar to the Nobel Prize, but with a bigger payout of $3 million, aims to change that. On Wednesday, Zuckerberg and Brin joined Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner and Anne Wojcicki, founder of genetic testing company 23andMe, to launch the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

The No. 2 academic official at Johns Hopkins University is leaving to become dean of Stanford University's School of Medicine. Lloyd B. Minor, who has served as Hopkins provost for three years, will leave the university at the end of August. Minor said he's excited by the "unique opportunity to advance state-of-the-art medical research that crosses and combines traditional medical disciplines and academic boundaries in unprecedented new ways. " Stanford's medical school is generally ranked among the top five in the country, though usually behind Hopkins' School of Medicine, where Minor chaired the department of otolaryngology — head and neck surgery — before becoming provost.

For years, patients in Maryland with intractable pain, chronic diseases or terminal diseases have lobbied lawmakers to legalize the medical use of marijuana to ease their symptoms. And for years the state has been torn between compassion and caution about whether the purported benefits of medical marijuana outweigh the potential dangers of a drug that has not been subjected to rigorous scientific testing to determine its safety and effectiveness. As a result, Maryland law on the issue has remained an inconsistent jumble.

Many people have heard of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg or Google co-founder Sergey Brin. But few know about Bert Vogelstein, a Johns Hopkins scientist who helped map the cancer genome and created gene and stool tests to detect colon cancer. A new, international award, similar to the Nobel Prize, but with a bigger payout of $3 million, aims to change that. On Wednesday, Zuckerberg and Brin joined Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner and Anne Wojcicki, founder of genetic testing company 23andMe, to launch the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

Dr. William Dewey Blake, a retired University of Maryland School of Medicine professor who was chairman of the department of physiology, died of cancer Sunday at his Bath, Maine, home. The former Bolton Hill resident was 94. Born in Summit, N.J., and raised in New Haven, Conn., he was the son of Dr. Francis Blake, Yale University's department of medicine chairman who was also an internist. His mother, Dorothy Blake, was a homemaker. After graduating from the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, he earned a degree at Dartmouth College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

As one who has been following the pros and cons of the gay marriage debate, one fact has gone unmentioned. There is no way to convince a person to be or not be homosexual; it is not a choice but the way one is born. For religious people, this means that gays and lesbians have been created by God to be who and what they are. Medical research has shown that gay people's brains are actually "wired" differently than those of heterosexuals. Why would anyone "chose" to be homosexual knowing that it would mean being shunned by a large segment of the population out of ignorance or hate?

Many patients taken to the University of Maryland's Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore cling to life, barely able to breathe, much less consent to participate in a medical trial, a reality that makes trauma research extremely difficult. With life-saving advances so hard to identify, researchers at Shock Trauma now hope to get around that problem — and answer one of trauma medicine's vexing questions — by declaring nearly everyone a potential test subject. The Baltimore hospital is one of 12 trauma centers around the country aiming to use a controversial bureaucratic tool to bypass individual consent and conduct the type of large-scale medical experiment that has proved elusive in the messy, life-and-death specialty of trauma care.

The space sure looked like a science lab, with beakers full of brightly-hued potions and a dry-erase board covered in graphs and mathematical scrawl. But at the heart of the operation sits a hunk of metal with a hand crank on the side. "It's a pasta maker," said Barry Margulies, a biology professor who presides over the Towson University lab. No joke. When it occurred to Margulies' graduate researcher that Williams Sonoma might have the answer to their prayers, it was a major breakthrough for the lab's efforts to treat one of America's most prevalent sexually transmitted diseases.

Former Sen. Paul T. Tsongas, whose successful fight against lymph cancer became a symbol of strength in his failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, will help launch a campaign today aimed at raising public awareness about the benefits of medical research.Mr. Tsongas will be the keynote speaker at the Maryland Science Center, where a national not-for-profit organization called Research!America will begin a two-week campaign of educational programs in Maryland schools, libraries and health care institutions.

The mushroom in the recent Reader SunShots photograph ("Details winner," April 29) is a Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) shelf mushroom. It is non-toxic, but inedible as is; it has the texture of shoe leather. Some people grind it into a powder and make tea out of it as a homeopathic medicinal remedy for all kinds of ailments. It is also used significantly in medical research for cancer and even has some published scientific success in helping breast cancer . Steve Johnson, Monkton

The No. 2 academic official at Johns Hopkins University is leaving to become dean of Stanford University's School of Medicine. Lloyd B. Minor, who has served as Hopkins provost for three years, will leave the university at the end of August. Minor said he's excited by the "unique opportunity to advance state-of-the-art medical research that crosses and combines traditional medical disciplines and academic boundaries in unprecedented new ways. " Stanford's medical school is generally ranked among the top five in the country, though usually behind Hopkins' School of Medicine, where Minor chaired the department of otolaryngology — head and neck surgery — before becoming provost.

Unless Congress acts, America may lose its leadership in biomedical science. Federally-funded biomedical research has greatly improved our quality of life. Diseases that were once a death sentence are now treatable. Federal research funding also bolsters Maryland's economy. The National Institutes of Health sent Maryland over a billion dollars ($1,687,675,636) in 2011 for research and training. These NIH grants create jobs and stimulate economic growth in our communities. However, under last year's Budget Control Act, automatic budget cuts will take effect in January unless Congress acts now. This would cut NIH's research budget by up to 11 percent.