University Of Maryland

Researchers hailed the Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that bans the patenting of human DNA, saying it would expand access to genetic testing for disease at lower cost to patients. In a unanimous decision, the justices said Myriad Genetics did not have exclusive rights to the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes that are linked to significantly greater risk for breast cancer and thus should not be the only company allowed to test for it. "Myriad did not create anything," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for his fellow justices.

The University of Maryland Medical Center will send layoff notices to employees at the end of the month as it looks to cut costs in the wake of federal budget cuts and what it and other state hospitals have called inadequate rate increases. Jeffrey Rivest, president and CEO of the Baltimore hospital, sent an email to managers Tuesday that said individual letters regarding layoffs would be given out June 25, 26 and 27. The number of people who will lose their jobs still is being finalized, said spokeswoman Mary Lynn Carver said.

The University of Maryland Medical Center will send layoff notices to employees at the end of the month as it looks to cut costs in the wake of federal budget cuts and what it and other state hospitals have called inadequate rate increases. Jeffrey Rivest, president and CEO of the Baltimore hospital, sent an email to managers Tuesday that said individual letters regarding layoffs would be given out June 25, 26 and 27. The number of people who will lose their jobs still is being finalized, said spokeswoman Mary Lynn Carver said.

Dr. Vernon F. Ottenritter, a retired Baltimore dentist and World War II veteran, died Monday at his Timonium home from complications of a fall. He was 87. Vernon Francis Ottenritter was born in Baltimore and raised on Springfield Avenue in the city's Pen Lucy neighborhood. After graduating from City College in 1943, he enlisted in the Air Force. The flight officer was discharged in 1945. His decorations included the American Theater Ribbon, Victory Ribbon, World War II and the Good Conduct Medal.

A half-century after his untimely death at the age of 38, celebrated tenor and movie star Mario Lanza is receiving fresh medical attention from a Baltimore doctor who takes a dim view of one of the singer's weight-loss treatments - injections of the urine of pregnant women, a controversial therapy with new followers today. Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak, vice chairman of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the Medical Care Clinical Center at the Veterans Administration Hospital downtown, teamed up with Armando Cesari, Lanza's Australia-based biographer, for an article about the singer's health issues just out in The Pharos, the journal of the medical honorary society Alpha Omega Alpha.

RARELY DOES ONE charitable contribution so profoundly affect the future of an institution and the people and community it serves."Those were a few of the words used to express the gratitude of Dr. Morton I. Rapoport, president and chief executive office of the University of Maryland Medical System, to the Martha Gudelsky family, which donated $5 million to build the new Homer Gudelsky clinical tower. Although this is the largest single gift ever given to the University of Maryland, it's not the first gift from the Gudelsky Foundation, which donated $1 million to construct the Anna Gudelsky Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, which opened in 1986.

A memorial service for Emma Robertson Richardson, the first woman to become a partner in a major Baltimore law firm, was to be held at 11 a.m. today at Broadmead, the Cockeysville retirement community at 13801 York Road.Mrs. Richardson, 82, who also had been a private pilot, died of pneumonia Dec. 23 at Broadmead.The former Emma S. "Bobbie" Robertson was born in Baltimore, graduating in 1930 from Friends School and 1934 from Goucher College -- where she majored in physics.She began working after graduation on a Treasury Department study of the income tax, and recalled in a 1950 interview how that sparked her interest in tax law: "I decided if so many people can be so dumb about their income taxes, there must be money in straightening them out."

Isaac Hecht, 89, longtime partner in city law firm Isaac Hecht, an attorney who practiced for 65 years, died Thursday of pneumonia at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 89 and lived in Pikesville. Born in Baltimore and raised on Bateman Avenue in Forest Park, he was a 1932 graduate of Forest Park High School. He earned a degree in economics from the Johns Hopkins University and received his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1938, the year he was admitted to the Maryland bar. A specialist in tax, corporation and estate law, he practiced in downtown Baltimore his entire life.

Donald P. MaleyUM professorDonald P. Maley, professor emeritus of industrial technology education at the University of Maryland in College Park, died Feb. 20 after a heart attack at his home in Crownsville.Dr. Maley, who was 75, retired as a full-time faculty member in 1987 but continued to teach until shortly before his death, giving him 47 years of teaching at UM.He earned his master's degree and doctorate in industrial arts education at UM. He wrote four books and 160 articles for professional journals.

The state Court of Appeals yesterday decided to allow a Bowie man who has spent more than a decade turning his life around to practice law.Charles Michael Smiroldo, 38, asked the state's highest court to acknowledge that he put drug use, minor criminal activity and irresponsibility behind him long ago.The judges heard his plea Friday, and Smiroldo will be admitted to the bar June 25, along with more than 600 other people."

Donald J. Artes, a Sinai Hospital pediatric respiratory therapist who was known as a skilled clinician and administrator, died May 24 of complications from an infection at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The Fullerton resident was 54. "He was a great man for sure. He was an inspiration to everyone at Sinai, and he always had the right attitude and sense of humor, no matter what the circumstances as he faced Crohn's and kidney disease," said David R. Madden, manager of the respiratory department at Sinai Hospital, whom Mr. Artes had hired at the University of Maryland Medical Center in 1996.

An attorney advising the University of Maryland recommended against seeking prosecution or reporting a swim coach who had allegedly abused a teenager at a private club, university officials said Wednesday. Documents released Wednesday by the school shed light on its response nearly 25 years ago to accusations involving Rick Curl, who was the head swim coach at the time. Immediately after the abuse was revealed, the university demanded Curl's resignation, but for decades he continued coaching thousands of swimmers — and Olympic competitors — at the club he founded outside Washington.

Kaci DeWitt-Rickards remembers being a chunky kid with a steady diet of Burger King chicken tenders, vanilla milkshakes and Papa John's pizza. By her sophomore year in college at the University of Miami, her adolescent pudge had ballooned into a weight problem. The 5-foot-4 exercise physiology major hit her heaviest weight ever that fall in 2010, weighing in at 167 pounds. She felt bad about herself and didn't have a lot of energy. But most of all, she felt like a hypocrite as she studied for a career to help people stay fit. "If you're going to go out and teach a healthy lifestyle, you have to live it," DeWitt-Rickards remembers a professor saying that fall semester.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine announced this week a $500 million fundraising goal — the Baltimore institution's largest campaign ever. Donors already have given $339 million during the quiet phase of the campaign, dubbed "Transforming Medicine Beyond Imagination. " The money will be used to advance research, fund top-notch training of doctors and devise ways to improve patient care, said Dean E. Albert Reece. Reece said institutions like his need to look more to private donors as government funds fail to keep pace with growth.

I disagree with the University of Maryland's Animal Science Department's decision to expand its horse-breeding program. There is a glut of unwanted horses and ponies across the country. Horse Rescue Farms are over-crowded and are turning away the no longer wanted animals for lack of space, feed, medication and shelter. Due to the economy and cost of keeping horses, owners are desperately trying to find homes for their no longer wanted horses, ponies, mules, and donkeys. Many are beloved pets or used for pleasure or racing or work or have outlived their purpose.

An email that Gawker reports was sent through the University of Maryland Delta Gamma sorority list-serv is lighting up the interwebs, it seems. The gist of it appears to be fury that sorority sisters were "weird" and "awkward" to Sigma Nu brothers during Greek Week. News of the email has been spread around sites including Huffington Post , the Atlantic Wire , the Washington City Paper and Cosmopolitan magazine. The national sorority has responded on its Facebook page , saying, " Delta Gamma Executive Offices is aware of the email allegedly written by a member of our Beta Sigma chapter that has gone viral after being posted on gawker.com and deadspin.com.

Barbara Hulfish, a neurologist on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine for about 30 years, died of cancer Oct. 31 at a Baltimore nursing home. She was 82 and had lived in Baltimore. Born in Alexandria, Va., Dr. Hulfish graduated from American University in 1944 and the University of Rochester (N.Y.) School of Medicine in 1952. She came to Baltimore in 1957 to finish her postgraduate work at the Johns Hopkins University. A year later, Dr. Hulfish joined the faculty of the University of Maryland, where she held joint appointments in the neurology and psychiatry departments until the 1980s.

The University of Maryland's $32 million Health Sciences and Human Services Library will be dedicated in a ceremony at 1: 30 p.m. today at the southwest corner of Lombard and Greene streets downtown.The event marks the grand opening of the 190,000-square-foot building, which ranks second in size only to Harvard University's among medical libraries on the East Coast.Tours will be given afterward.Pub Date: 9/17/98

This is prettay, prettay, prettay cool. Larry David, the creator/star of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and, of course, a co-creator/writer of "Seinfeld," was apparently seen on the University of Maryland-College Park campus on Tuesday, escorting one of his daughters on a campus tour, according to UMD's student newspaper, The Diamondback.  The Diamondback reports that college officials wouldn't comment on the alleged sightings, but David is...

The sun has spewed a pair of solar particle blasts toward three NASA unmanned spacecraft in recent days -- including one on a University of Maryland-led mission. But the risk of electronic malfunctioning is expected to be low and no impact on Earth is forecast, NASA said. The coronal mass ejections occurred at 8:36 p.m. Tuesday and 6:54 a.m. Wednesday. The CMEs sent solar particles flying at about 400 miles per second, a rate that would have them reach Earth within a few days.