Category Archives: Alabama Stem Cells

Even today, Nancy Kelly swears she heard the sound of her unborn babys scream during the first abortion procedure she underwent.

The sound would haunt her from that day forward.

It made such an impact on her heart that she chose to not abort the twins she would conceive years later, after she was raped.

Today Kelly, 55, is a pro-life advocate who proudly vocalizes that those very same twins, now 21 and thriving, in fact saved her life.

A product of her being traumatically molested in youth, Kellys subsequent promiscuity in her early 20s led to pregnancy out of wedlock. Her then-partner compelled her to terminate the pregnancy.

What she heard that daythat soul-destroying screamshe believes, validates that an unborn baby isnt just a blob of cells.

I still swear to this day, as they were ripping parts of my babys body from me, that I heard a scream, she told The Epoch Times. I mean, having your limbs ripped from your body one at a time is painful. A baby is more than justyou know, a baby is a life.

Kelly was a registered nurse, then in her early 30s at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, when she experienced severe PTSD as a result of her abortion experience (she recalled being coerced into having a second one a year later); that trauma would torment her until much later in life, when she found faith.

But the haunting memory jarred her enoughto reject the procedure in time to save two other lives.

Then working three jobs, already a mother of five, Kelly learned she was pregnant again, but now with twins. She went for an ultrasound on her lunch break at the hospital, she recalled, where one of the doctors made her a chilling offer.

She said, I know about your situation. She goes, Youre pregnant with twins, and I was like, you know, in a state of disbelief, Kelly said. And she goes, I can help you.

I didnt know what she was talking about at first, and she said, Youre too far along to go and have an abortion, but we can make arrangements for you to come in for a hospital stay for an illness. We can make sure that when you leave, youre no longer pregnant.

And I said, Thats not legal. She goes, Whats not legal? I said, An abortion. She said, I didnt say anything about abortion, and she kind of looked at me. And I said, What? How elseshe goes, she stopped me, and she said, Think about it. Offer is on the table, and she left.

Kelly was in disbelief that anyone could say such a thing, seeing two beating hearts on the ultrasound screen. Her past trauma had made her sober.

Far from being a woman of faith at the time, Kelly was, by her own admission, a pagan who practiced that belief system, including rituals such as jumping over brooms and casting spellsthe whole works.

Looking back, she believes it was the moral compass given to all people, believers and non-believers alike, from God, that compelled her to reject termination flat out. She felt unworthy of being a mother for what she had done.

She shared that some in society hold the ideology orbelief that children conceived because of rape should be abortedor even killed. Even some conservatively-minded individuals consider rape to be the exception, when abortion is okay.

Kelly has been asked if she wished to see the face of her rapist in her childrens faces for the rest of her life, as if that was reason enough to end their lives.

It was not just her moral compass but also her faith that would engender the wisdom to rebut that narrativeshe would realize the unexpected blessings that stem from the hardships we are dealt in life.

That spiritual awakening came after she moved to Alabama to distance herself from the man who raped her.

It wasnt easy moving to a new townwhere she knew no one and had no job to support her large family.

Their community of pro-life Christians kept their heads above water. For two years, they lived in a homeless womens shelter; Kelly had to attend Bible study regularly where there were plenty of angry women also in attendance; many just fulfilled the obligation, trying their utmost to not pay attention.

At one particular study though, Kelly heard one wonderful Christian woman and had a breakthrough.

That night, I just went to my room, and I think I was weeping and wailing. And [I said, God,] if youre real, you got to show me, because at this point I feel like you just left me to just wallow in my sin in my life, and I dont deserve this, she said.

At that point, there was a peace that came over me. That confirmed to me that, you know, that God was real.

That validation didnt make life easier, she said, but it made it easier to deal with life. A similar understanding dawned on her in raising her twin babies, Gracie and Ryan.

In them, Kelly saw how the horror of what abortion had inflicted upon her life, could be so markedly contrasted by the unexpected blessings from choosing lifeGod made that possible.

I daily looked at the faces of my children and knew that there were two that were missing, that there were faces that I would never know, hugs that I would never get, and laughter that I would never have, she said.God blessed me by making me pregnant with those kids.

Were it not for them, Kelly might not have found life worth living. They were her reasons.

If Id given my babies away, I wouldnt have had that blessing to look at and say, These are the reasons. [The] Bible says that God takes everything and uses it for the good of those who love Him and are called by His purpose.

Oddly, life started to improve afterward.

One of the ladies from my church called me and said, I heard you are cleaning houses or something, because I needed somebody to clean my house, Kelly recalled. And I kind of laughed and I was like, No, I havent been cleaning anybodys house. But if you want somebody to help you clean your house, I could use the extra money.

Within a few weeks, the mom had a tidy little cleaning business to support herself and her seven kids.

Today, living in Chelsea, Kelly and her son remain devoted to faith. Ryan even aspires to become a church leader. Meanwhile, her daughter Gracie lives with her eldest sister out-of-state, where she plans to attend college.

Still, the malicious narrative perpetuated by certain segments in society: that rapists babies somehow deserve to die, or somehow do not deserve to live, has been a painful hurdle for the threeone that Gracie has, to some extent, succumbed to in the formation of her own beliefs.

You hear the propaganda enough and youre surrounded by it without any counter, sometimes you take on those beliefs, Kelly said. And despite the fact that she knows my story, and all the sacrifices that I made to make sure that she was here, she is among those who will say, Well, just because youve got to make the choice, doesnt mean everybody else has to.

Of the cruelty emanating from certain domains of society, Kelly believes that Satan is hard at work, turning good evil and evil good, yet she finds solace in telling others how choosing life was a blessing in disguise that redeemed her life.

She is quick to point out how life-affirming communities abound across the nation, offering robust networks of support for women in need. Resources are plentiful: be they accommodations, food and clothing, furniture, and everything in between.

Added Kelly, When I walk into heaven and someone will say, I met Jesus because of you, or, I didnt abort my child because of what I heard, or Im here because my mother made a decision because she heard you talk. Thats where my measure of success is.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter

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Woman Who Conceived Twins in Rape Rejects Abortion, Shares How Her 21-Year-Old Twins Saved Her Life - The Epoch Times

Eli Belser is living out a dream this weekend.

When the first Kid Captain of the 2022 Hawkeye football season was too sick to watch games, his mom Katie promised he would one day see Kinnick from the field, not from the halls of the University of Iowa Stead Family Childrens Hospital.

Katie said she struggled making a promise she was unsure she could keep.

Every day, I am scared of relapse because he still has a high chance, she said. But I promised him he would wave someday. And I asked him what seat he would sit in. He said well, why cant I be on the field? And I said, you have to pick a seat. I promised him, but then COVID happened, and no one was in the stands. Last year was a crazy year without regular treatments, so he never got to go to a home game. Now that its happening, its super exciting.

The seven-year-old and his family first took the near-two-hour drive from Elkader, Iowa, to Iowa City when he was four. Eli had been limping and a pediatrician referred him to Stead Family Childrens Hospital once a few potential ailments were dismissed as causes of his symptoms.

Katie and her husband, Marcus, were frustrated when they had to wait for the appointment as their sons condition worsened quickly. Katie said they hit a breaking point in June, as they waited for the August appointment.

I have five kids, so Ive dealt with the fevers, kids being sick, and all the different illnesses, she said. I knew this was definitely different. I asked the pediatrician and he said, if I knew something was wrong, to take him to Iowa City. So, thats what we did. We showed up at the ER and told them everything and they took him in for testing and they noticed something.

Initially, Eli was diagnosed in 2019 with a rare bone disease called chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis, or CRMO. After choosing a treatment plan, Eli didnt get better. The family returned to the UI with continuing symptoms a month later, and Eli received more testing.

Katie and Marcus then heard the words of a scarier diagnosis: stage 4 neuroblastoma.

Neuroblastoma is a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells. It has one of the most aggressive treatment plans given to children. Thats when Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner Mary Schlapkohl came into the Belsers lives.

Schlapkohl works in the pediatric oncology department; Eli calls her grandma. She said its normal for neuroblastoma patients to receive misdiagnoses.

Sometimes, symptoms mimic other childhood illnesses, and in his case, his symptoms looked like CRMO, she said. It depends on how sick they are and how aggressive providers are when looking for a cause.

Eli was treated with biopsies, surgeries, five cycles of chemotherapy, stem cell transplants, radiation, and immunotherapy.

In May 2022, the Belsers celebrated two years of Eli being cancer free.

Since his diagnosis and treatments, Katie said Eli has been a big advocate for childhood cancer awareness and he takes the field with the Hawkeyes during Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.

We were talking about something for school recently and he asked if he should ask for yellow ribbons since Pediatric Cancer Awareness month is September, she said. He cares about other kids still fighting and he still asks about the families we met.

As the first Kid Captain this fall, Eli also is the first child to pick a song for the Hawkeye Wave. When fans take the stands on Saturday, Katie wants them to know the song is extremely important to her, Marcus, and their five children.

The song that is going to be played at Kinnick was a song that got him through treatment, and it helped his siblings a lot, she said. They all love it.

Eli is ecstatic to see his favorite player, Kaevon Merriweather, again when he joins the Hawkeyes as they take on South Dakota State. He already started telling friends at school and is looking forward to coming back to Iowa City.

Im excited about everything, he said. Im ready.

The Belsers plan to go to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate if the Hawkeyes win, something Eli is looking forward to.

With dreams of being a quarterback, Eli said he will one day be a Hawkeye or a member of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Those are his only two options, he said. Marcus is a big Alabama fan and head coach Nick Saban sent Eli signed gear when he was in the hospital for treatment.

Marcus said his son being a Kid Captain is a once in a lifetime experience and hes thankful the Hawkeye Football Team changes kids like Elis lives.

To pick Eli as a Kid Captain, its amazing, he said. Im grateful for it all.

Whenever Katie travels to Johnson County, she knows it could be the moment her fears come true, and she might hear her son has cancer again. Coming down to the UI this Saturday is a break in her normal pace an exciting, fun, and needed break.

After Kids Day, it was a whole different feeling weve never felt. It was like closure, she said. Families go through so much. When you go down there, its for very serious things and a lot of it is traumatic. Its one of those things you sugar coat, and you dont tell people how you really felt. For once, were going down there for fun To go down there and feel loved and happy and not once think about a scan coming back bad, the experience is completely different. It was closure.

Original post:
Kid Captain Eli Belser takes the field with Hawkeyes, celebrating two years cancer free - UI The Daily Iowan

From breast cancer treatments to self-driving cars and fitness trackers, space exploration is improving life on Earth for millions of people.

As the James Webb Space Telescope beams incredible images back to Nasa, scientists hailed the way the same technology has been used to improve eye surgery.

It is the latest example of how space research can be used in multiple formats of everyday life, particularly in improving healthcare.

The eyesight of millions has improved thanks to the technology used to build the Webb telescope over decades, by driving major improvements to Lasik eye surgery.

The same process for measuring the powerful mirrors used by the telescope to capture fragments of light from more than 13 billion years ago in deep space has been incorporated into a device to precisely measure the human eye.

The technology has been incorporated into Johnson & Johnson Visions iDesign Refractive Studio, a device that takes measurements to map imperfections in visual pathways and cornea curvature, similar to a unique optical fingerprint for each eye.

The mirrors were one of the really critical technologies we needed to develop to enable the observatory, said Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for Webb at Nasas Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.

We had to polish them in such a way that, when they cool down, they become the mirror shape that we want.

We had to match the curvature of one mirror to the next, which was a very challenging problem.

Since the early 2,000s, the technology has been expanded and used elsewhere, including in treating people with degenerative eye conditions.

Johnson & Johnson Vision, which is headquartered in Santa Ana, California, acquired the technology in 2017, incorporating it into its iDesign Refractive Studio, which won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration in 2018.

It has been used in more than 18 million successful procedures worldwide by eye doctors in 47 countries.

Although Nasa didnt invent the technology used in thousands of hospitals around the world, the same digital image processing technique was used to enhance photographs of the moon.

That eventually led to the evolution of computerised tomography used daily in MRI and CT scans to provide potentially life-saving images for doctors.

Space engineers worked alongside doctors to develop an artificial heart pump in 1995 that uses similar technology intended for space shuttle fuel injectors.

The lifesaving device pumps blood from the heart to the rest of the body via a control unit and battery pack and acts as a stop-gap for patients awaiting a heart transplant.

The next-generation foam used to insulate the external tanks of the space shuttle has since been used to build moulds for amputees.

The materials used are affordable and robust, making them perfect for the development of artificial limbs.

The Nasa technology was originally developed for experiments to grow plants in space. For more than a decade it has been used to reduce the painful side effects of chemotherapy in cancer patients and those receiving a stem-cell transplant.

Trials of a High Emissivity Aluminiferous Luminescent Substrate, or Heals device, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, found a 96 per cent improvement in pain management in those who used LEDs (a semiconductor light source that emits light when current flows through it).

The light sources release energy in the form of photons, that stimulate cells to aid the healing process.

Wearable devices to measure biometric activity are commonplace. But the EmbracePlus smartwatch designed to monitor astronauts during deep space exploration is now being used to monitor patients.

It offers doctors real-time monitoring of physiological data of patients to help collect valuable information for research studies and clinical trials. It is proving particularly effective in neurology, by advancing the research on those with Alzheimers, dementia or brain injuries when it can be difficult to get accurate patient-generated data.

Nasa has developed its Deep Space Networks a GPS navigation system for space. The technology relies on atomic clocks for the precise accuracy required during huge distances.

The refined lasers and oscillators used in the technology can help with communications on Earth and range-finders for self-driving cars.

Updated: July 23, 2022, 8:34 AM

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How space technology like the James Webb telescope is improving healthcare on Earth - The National

Throughout the pandemic, scientists have discovered that being biologically male or female might impact you when it comes to COVID-19 outcomes, long COVID, and vaccine responses but the reasons for these differences have yet to be fully understood.

While experts investigate this topic (many are calling for more studies that look at outcomes based on sex), its important to know how your sex may affect your risk, particularly if youre immunocompromised. This should be part of the ongoing conversation you have with your doctor to determine your risk level and your strategy for protecting yourself against COVID-19.

Heres what we know about the differences in COVID-19 between males and females so far and what it may mean for you.

While researchers agree that males die of COVID-19 at a higher rate than females, its not entirely clear why. A series of social factors may play a bigger role than biological differences, per a February 2022 Harvard GenderSci Lab study of more than 30 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States.

The team found that males were infected and died at higher rates than females in some states, but these rates were about even in other states. And at certain points during the pandemic, females outpaced males in cases and fatalities. Because of this, looking at the aggregate data for the nation could be misleading.

Whats more, the gap between males and females was smaller than what experts originally thought: Early on, it was reported that males were dying of COVID-19 at twice the rate of females. However, the data from the teams tracker showed that males in the United States had a mortality rate that was just 10 to 20 percent higher than that of females between April 2020 and May 2021.

After statistical modeling, the researchers found that 30 percent of this variation was due to state-level factors, such as differences in public health policies, timing and length of mask mandates, and other social factors like gendered health behaviors, occupational exposures, pre-existing health conditions, and demographics including race, age, and education.

The model also showed that 10 percent of the difference was based on when a measurement was taken during the pandemic.

The remaining 60 percent of the variation was not explained by either time or state. Still, researchers dont believe that interventions centered on sex-related biological factors like the use of testosteron blockers or estrogen would have a significant impact on outcomes.

Without considering [social and contextural] factors, youre missing part of the picture of why people might be getting exposed or getting a more severe case, Tamara Rushovich, a graduate student at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health and part of the GenderSci Lab research team, told The Harvard Gazette. For example, when you see numbers that show different rates of cases or deaths, its not just biology, but what was your exposure risk? And thats influenced by things like your occupation or your income.

Gendered behaviors can also play a role in the different outcomes between males and females.

Thereve been studies that look at things like adherence to mask policies or social-distancing guidelines, added Rushovich. They saw differences in gender adherence to those, so men being less likely to wear masks properly or to adhere to social distancing guidelines.

For instance, an October 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America looked at the gender differences in COVID-19 attitudes and behavior from eight countries. Researchers found that 59 percent of females considered COVID-19 to be a very serious problem during the first wave of the pandemic (March 16-30, 2020) across all eight countries studied (Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States), compared to just 48.7 percent of the males.

In both periods studied (including the second period from April 15-20, 2020), individuals were asked to evaluate how strictly they were following seven recommended rules, including keeping physical distance from others or staying at home. Compliance was markedly higher in females (by 5 to 6 percent), but smaller than the differences in beliefs about the pandemic.

And even after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and employment status, females were much more likely than males to believe that the health consequences of the pandemic were very serious and were also more supportive of restraining measures and more compliant with public health and social distancing measures, per the researchers.

The risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes may be further heightened in certain immunocompromised populations. In an April 2021 review in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, researchers found that individuals who were hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT) recipients had a 68 percent rate of 28-day survival after COVID-19 with risk factors for mortality including being male, being older than 50 years, and getting infected within 12 months after HCT.

Likewise, the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance (GRA) has looked at factors associated with COVID-19 mortality in 3,729 patients with rheumatic diseases. Being male, having an older age, and living with certain comorbidities (hypertension, heart disease, and chronic lung disease) were risk factors for COVID-19-related death. More rheumatic disease activity and certain medications (like rituximab) also raised risk.

On the other hand, some research shows that females might be more likely to encounter long COVID than males but additional studies are needed to confirm this.

A June 2022 review in Current Medical Research and Opinion found that the likelihood of having long-COVID syndrome was 22 percent greater among females. In particular, female patients were significantly more likely to have long-COVID symptoms in the categories of psychiatric and mood (i.e. depression); ear, nose, or throat; musculoskeletal (i.e. myalgia); and respiratory.

That said, male patients were significantly more likely to have long COVID in the category of renal disorders (i.e. acute kidney injury).

Differences in immune system function between females and males could be an important driver of sex differences in long COVID-19 syndrome, note the researchers. Females mount more rapid and robust innate and adaptive immune responses, which can protect them from initial infection and severity. However, this same difference can render females more vulnerable to prolonged autoimmune-related diseases.

As with Lyme disease, the COVID-19 pathogen might remain hidden and generate greater levels of inflammatory cytokines in females than males, per a February 2022 review in the European Respiratory Journal. Some experts believe that fragments of SARS-CoV-2 could hang around areas of the body like the kidneys or brain, sparking a chronic inflammation-associated cascade. This may result in symptoms like pain or brain fog.

In general, 80 percent of all individuals affected by autoimmune disorders are females, due to variation within the sex chromosomes and hormonal changes, per a May 2020 review in Cureus. (An increasing body of research has pointed toward the possibility that COVID-19 causes the development of autoantibodies linked to other autoimmune diseases and may be tied to long-COVID symptoms.)

All of this said, most studies on long COVID do not evaluate or report granular data by sex, so more research in this area will be key for better understanding the risk of long COVID.

The lack of studies reporting sex-disaggregated outcomes for COVID-19 speaks to the need for further, large-scale research that includes sex as an analytical variable and that reports data by sex, note the researchers of the Current Medical Research and Opinion review.

Its important to talk to your doctor about your risk of long COVID as an immunocompromised patient and how your sex might play a role in that risk.

I have not seen data to suggest confirming that immunocompromised patients are more likely to develop long COVID than patients who are not immunocompromised, Samoon Ahmad, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told us previously. That said, its clear that immunocompromised patients are more likely to develop severe COVID if they get it and research suggests that people who have severe COVID are more likely to develop long COVID.

Read more about what you should know about long COVID.

Individuals who are biologically male or female also have differences when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, whether its in regards to vaccine hesitancy or risk of adverse effects.

Initially, females were more hesitant than males to get the COVID-19 vaccine. In a review of 60 studies published in the Journal of Public Health, researchers found that 58 percent of papers reported males having higher intentions to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Significantly fewer females stated that they would get vaccinated than males during the time period studied (November 2020 to January 2021).

Overall, males were on average 41 percent more likely to report that they intended to receive a vaccine rather than being unwilling or undecided compared with females. The gender effects were even higher among health care workers compared with unspecified population samples. (That said, this result requires cautious interpretation, given that gender proportions in the health care worker samples were highly unbalanced and the number of studies with health care worker samples was comparatively small.)

However, many of the studies included in this review asked individuals about their intentions to get vaccinated before a vaccine was available.

By April 2021, more females than males had gotten vaccinated in many states, per the Kaiser Family Foundation. The vaccine breakdown between males and females was generally close to 60 percent and 40 percent for instance, 58 percent of those vaccinated in Alabama were females and 57 percent were females in Florida.

There may be many reasons for this difference: For instance, females make up three-quarters of the workforce in health care and education, which were sectors prioritized for initial vaccines. Females also tend to have longer life spans, so older individuals initially eligible for vaccines were more likely to be female. However, the gender gap continued even as eligibility expanded to all adults.

When it comes to rare adverse reactions to the vaccines, males and females also appear to be affected differently. In a February 2022 review in the journal Vaccines, researchers found that the risk of adverse events after the Pfizer-BioNTeach COVID-19 vaccine were consistently higher in females of all ages. This included local responses such as pain at the injection site, systemic events such as fever, and sensory events such as paresthesia (a burning, prickling sensation) in the hands and face.

Females may have increased reactogenicity of vaccines and are at higher risk of anaphylaxis, per the review.

The remarkably consistent excess in the rates of adverse events in females following immunization with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, in all age groups, suggests that gender-specific factors influence the response to the vaccine, note the researchers. These findings indicate that different doses of the vaccine for men and women should be explored.

Females also report more vaccine side effects in general. More than 79 percent of nearly 7,000 reports processed through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System from December 14, 2020 to January 13, 2021 came from females, per the CDCs Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The most frequently reported symptoms were headache, dizziness, and fatigue.

This could be due to females greater immune response. From a biological perspective, women and girls produce sometimes twice as many infection-fighting antibodies from vaccines, said Rosemary Morgan, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told USA TODAY.

Whats more, male sex hormones like testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) have immunosuppressive qualities because of the way they modulate the breakdown of fat, per St. Lukes Health. Some research has shown that males have lesser antibody responses and lesser inflammatory cytokine expression when given the flu shot than females.

However, this doesnt appear to affect COVID-19 vaccine efficacy rates which were actually slightly higher for males than females in clinical trials. For instance, clinical trials showed that the Moderna vaccine was 95.4 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 in males, compared to 93.1 percent for females. For the Pfizer vaccine, efficacy was 96.4 percent in males and 93.7 percent in females.

One study in the journal Molecular Pharmacology looked at whether fat-based nanoparticles could be the cause behind the difference in vaccine efficacy. Researchers found that there were significant differences in the uptake of these nanoparticles between male and female natural killer cells (a type of immune cell that has small particles with enzymes that can kill cells infected with a virus).

The results of this proof-of-concept study show the importance of recipient sex as a critical factor which enables researchers to better consider sex in the development and administration of vaccines for safer and more-efficient sex-specific outcomes, note the researchers.

If youre immunocompromised, youre likely already mindful of mitigation efforts to protect yourself against COVID-19. While being biologically male or female isnt likely to make a major impact on your risk of severe disease (unless you partake in behavior that increases your risk), it might affect your chances of long COVID.

And while its possible you may have a slightly higher risk of an adverse reaction to the vaccine if youre female, such reactions are rare. In most cases, the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine outweigh the risks.

Of course, as an immunocompromised patient, its important to be aware of every tool you have to protect yourself and to stay aware of your risks. For instance, you should have a conversation with your doctor about your risk level for long COVID should you get infected (and how your sex may play a role in that risk).

Although we still have much to learn about the differences between females and males when it comes to COVID-19, you can use the clues available to create the best-informed strategy to protect yourself in partnership with your doctor.

Join the Global Healthy Living Foundations free COVID-19 Support Program for chronic illness patients and their families. We will be providing updated information, community support, and other resources tailored specifically to your health and safety.Join now.

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How COVID-19, Long COVID, and COVID Vaccines Differ Between Males and Females - CreakyJoints

Washington [US], July 18 (ANI): Unlike other organs, the heart cannot heal itself after injury. Heart disease is the top cause of mortality in the U.S and is particularly deadly. For this reason, tissue engineering will be crucial for the development of cardiac medicine, ultimately leading to the mass production of a wholesale fabrication of an entire human heart for transplant.

The findings of the research were published in Science.

To build a human heart from the ground up, researchers need to replicate the unique structures that make up the heart. This includes recreating helical geometries, which create a twisting motion as the heart beats. Its been long theorized that this twisting motion is critical for pumping blood at high volumes, but proving that has been difficult, in part because creating hearts with different geometries and alignments has been challenging.

Now, bioengineers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed the first biohybrid model of human ventricles with helically aligned beating cardiac cells, and have shown that muscle alignment does, in fact, dramatically increases how much blood the ventricle can pump with each contraction.

This advancement was made possible using a new method of additive textile manufacturing, Focused Rotary Jet Spinning (FRJS), which enabled the high-throughput fabrication of helically aligned fibers with diameters ranging from several micrometers to hundreds of nanometers. Developed at SEAS by Kit Parkers Disease Biophysics Group, FRJS fibers direct cell alignment, allowing for the formation of controlled tissue engineered structures.

This work is a major step forward for organ biofabrication and brings us closer to our ultimate goal of building a human heart for transplant, said Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS and senior author of the paper.

This work has its roots in a centuries old mystery. In 1669, English physician Richard Lower a man who counted John Locke among his colleagues and King Charles II among his patients first noted the spiral-like arrangement of heart muscles in his seminal work Tractatus de Corde.

Over the next three centuries, physicians and scientists have built a more comprehensive understanding of the hearts structure but the purpose of those spiraling muscles has remained frustratingly hard to study.

In 1969, Edward Sallin, former chair of the Department of Biomathematics at the University of Alabama Birmingham Medical School, argued that the hearts helical alignment is critical to achieving large ejection fractions the percentage of how much blood the ventricle pumps with each contraction.

Our goal was to build a model where we could test Sallins hypothesis and study the relative importance of the hearts helical structure, said John Zimmerman, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and co-first author of the paper.

To test Sallins theory, the SEAS researchers used the FRJS system to control the alignment of spun fibers on which they could grow cardiac cells.

The first step of FRJS works like a cotton candy machine a liquid polymer solution is loaded into a reservoir and pushed out through a tiny opening by centrifugal force as the device spins. As the solution leaves the reservoir, the solvent evaporates, and the polymers solidify to form fibers. Then, a focused airstream controls the orientation of the fiber as they are deposited on a collector. The team found that by angling and rotating the collector, the fibers in the stream would align and twist around the collector as it spun, mimicking the helical structure of heart muscles.

The alignment of the fibers can be tuned by changing the angle of the collector.

The human heart actually has multiple layers of helically aligned muscles with different angles of alignment, said Huibin Chang, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and co-first author of the paper. With FRJS, we can recreate those complex structures in a really precise way, forming single and even four chambered ventricle structures.

Unlike 3D printing, which gets slower as features get smaller, FRJS can quickly spin fibers at the single micron scale or about fifty times smaller than a single human hair. This is important when it comes to building a heart from scratch. Take collagen for instance, an extracellular matrix protein in the heart, which is also a single micron in diameter. It would take more than 100 years to 3D print every bit of collagen in the human heart at this resolution. FRJS can do it in a single day.

After spinning, the ventricles were seeded with rat cardiomyocyte or human stem cell derived cardiomyocyte cells. Within about a week, several thin layers of beating tissue covered the scaffold, with the cells following the alignment of the fibers beneath.

The beating ventricles mimicked the same twisting or wringing motion present in human hearts.

The researchers compared the ventricle deformation, speed of electrical signaling and ejection fraction between ventricles made from helical aligned fibers and those made from circumferentially aligned fibers. They found on every front, the helically aligned tissue outperformed the circumferentially aligned tissue.

Since 2003, our group has worked to understand the structure-function relationships of the heart and how disease pathologically compromises these relationships, said Parker. In this case, we went back to address a never tested observation about the helical structure of the laminar architecture of the heart. Fortunately, Professor Sallin published a theoretical prediction more than a half century ago and we were able to build a new manufacturing platform that enabled us to test his hypothesis and address this centuries-old question.

The team also demonstrated that the process can be scaled up to the size of an actual human heart and even larger, to the size of a Minke whale heart (they didnt seed the larger models with cells as it would take billions of cardiomyocyte cells).

Besides biofabrication, the team also explores other applications for their FRJS platform, such as food packaging. (ANI)

This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

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Researchers find fabrication of artificial heart for transplant - ThePrint

Swiss-born Italian physician

Paolo Macchiarini (born 22 August 1958)[1]:2 is a Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and manipulative behavior.[2][3]

Previously considered a pioneer for using both biological and synthetic scaffolds seeded with patients' own stem cells as trachea transplants, Macchiarini was a Visiting Professor and Director on a temporary contract at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet (KI) from 2010.[4] Macchiarini has been accused of unethically performing experimental surgeries, even on relatively healthy patients, resulting in fatalities for seven of the eight patients who received one of his synthetic trachea transplants.[5] Articles in Vanity Fair and Aftonbladet further suggested that he had falsified some of his academic credentials on rsums.[6][7]

Urban Lendahl[sv], the secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, resigned in February 2016, owing to his involvement in recruiting Macchiarini to KI.[8]Shortly afterwards KI's vice chancellor, Anders Hamsten[sv], who in 2015 had cleared Macchiarini of misconduct, also resigned.[9] KI terminated its clinical relationship with Macchiarini in 2013 but allowed him to continue as a researcher; in February 2016, the university announced that it would not renew his research contract, which was due to expire in November, and terminated the contract the following month.[10] After being dismissed from KI, Macchiarini worked at the Kazan Federal University in Russia until that institution terminated his project in April 2017, effectively firing him.[11][12]

After a one-year medico-legal investigation, the Swedish Prosecution Authority announced in October 2017 that Macchiarini had been negligent in four of the five cases investigated due to the use of devices and procedures not supported by evidence, but that a crime could not be proven because the patients might have died under any other treatment given.[13][14] Also in October, Sweden's Expert Group on Scientific Misconduct found evidence of research fraud by Macchiarini and his co-authors in six papers and called for them to be retracted.[15] As of 2020, Macchiarini has had eight of his research papers retracted, and two have received an expression of concern.[16]

Paolo Macchiarini obtained his medical degree (equivalent to MD) at the Medical School of the University of Pisa (UniPi) in 1986 and a Master of Surgery in 1991.[17] He was an assistant professor at UniPi from 1990 to 1992.[17] He took a course on statistics in clinical research at University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1989.[17] Macchiarini obtained degree certificatesa masters in organ and tissue transplantation dated 1994 and a doctorate in the same dated 1997from University of Franche-Comt in France.[17] According to Germany's Hannover Medical School, he never had a salaried position there, but was head of the department of thoracic and vascular surgery at the Heidehaus Hanover hospital between 1999 and 2004.[17] Macchiarini was an investigator at the Institut d'Investigacions Biomdiques-Instituto de Investigaciones Biomdicas in Barcelona, Spain, from 2006 to 2009; he was affiliated with but not an employee of the University of Barcelona and was apparently an employee at the Hospital Clnic de Barcelona during this time.[17] He had an honorary appointment as a Visiting Professor from 2009 to 2014, at University College London.[17] He was a consultant and project manager at University Hospital Careggi (AOUC) starting in 2010.[17]

Later in 2010, Macchiarini was appointed as a visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute (KI) in Stockholm and as a part-time position as surgeon at the affiliated university hospital.[17] In 2013, KI terminated its clinical relationship with Macchiarini but allowed him to continue as a researcher; in February 2016, the university announced that it would not renew Macchiarini's research contract, which was due to expire in November, and terminated the contract the following month.[10][18] KI published the incomplete results of its verification of Macchiarini's CV in February 2016.[17]

Macchiarini made ties in Russia after he gave a master class in 2010, at the invitation of politician Mikhail Batin; a few months later he did a trachea transplant there which was widely covered in Russian media.[12] This led to Macchiarini's 2011 appointment at Kuban State Medical University, funded by the university and the Russian government,[12] along with an honorary doctorate.[17] In 2016, he moved to Kazan Federal University and the grant money moved with him.[12] In April 2017, the university terminated Macchiarini's research project there.[12]

In June 2008, Macchiarini conducted a transplant of a donated trachea colonized with the stem cells of the recipient, Claudia Castillo; the tissue was used to replace her left bronchus, which had been damaged by tuberculosis, and her left lung had collapsed.[19] The trachea came from a cadaver, and was stripped of its cells and seeded with cells taken from Castillo's bone marrow.[19][20][21] The bone marrow cells were cultured at the University of Bristol, the donor trachea was stripped at University of Padua, the stripped trachea was seeded with the cultured cells at University of Milan, and the trachea was transplanted by a team led by Macchiarini at Hospital Clinic in Barcelona.[19][22]

In March 2010, Macchiarini attended a transplant performed by Great Ormond Street surgeons. Similar to the one done for Castillo, on a ten-year-old Irish boy, Ciaran Finn-Lynch, at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.[23] The boy was born with a 1mm diameter trachea, and efforts to widen it had caused life-threatening complications.[23] Unlike the Castillo procedure, in this case, the stripped trachea was seeded with the boy's stem cells just hours before it was implanted.

Keziah Shorten had trachea cancer. In 2010, Macchiarini performed a transplant similar to the earlier two; the transplant failed the next year, and a synthetic trachea was implanted for palliative care at University College Hospital London in 2011, after which she was able to be discharged and return home for Christmas with her family before succumbing to her underlying disease.[24]

In 2010, Macchiarini implanted a seeded donated trachea in a woman in Russia, while working with surgeon Vladimir Parshin.[12][25][26]

Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene was a man from Eritrea who was earning a master's degree in Iceland when he was diagnosed with cancer; the cancer was treated with chemotherapy and surgery in 2009, but in 2011 his trachea was obstructed again. Beyene's doctors recommended palliative care, but also reached out to Macchiarini, who was at KI by that time.[27]:8 In this case, Macchiarini collaborated with scientists at University College London to manufacture a fully synthetic trachea, with an engineered scaffold seeded with Beyene's marrow cells, instead of using a donated and stripped trachea, as it had been done before.[24] The operation occurred in June 2011 and was widely covered in the media, including a front page story in The New York Times.[28] By end of the year the implant was failing, and while Beyene was able to complete his Ph.D in 2012, he died in January 2013 despite undergoing many treatments at KI.[27]:8 The autopsy showed that Beyene had a chronic lung infection, a clot in his lung, and the synthetic trachea had come loose.[27]:8

Christopher Lyles lived in the United States; he had tracheal cancer which was treated with radiation and surgery. He heard about Beyene's treatment and through his doctor asked Macchiarini to do the same for him. Macchiarini obliged, creating a fully synthetic trachea seeded with stem cells from Lyles and implanting it at KI in November 2011.[27]:9 Lyles died suddenly in 2012 after he had returned home; no autopsy was performed.[27]:9[29]

In June 2012, Macchiarini implanted a fully synthetic seeded trachea in Yulia Tuulik at Kuban State Medical University; Tuulik had a tracheostomy resulting from a car accident, but her life was not in danger.[12][30] The graft included a cricoid cartilage, part of the voice box, which Macchiarini had not tried before.[30] The trachea later collapsed, and was replaced; she died in 2014.[12] An audit by the Russian government later found that Macchiarini had operated without a Russian medical license.[12]

Also in June 2012, Macchiarini implanted a second synthetic seeded trachea on Alexander Zozulya, who also had a tracheostomy resulting from a car accident and whose life was not in danger.[12][24][30] The effects from the first implant in 2012 prompted a second surgery in November 2013. Zozulya died in February 2014 under unclear circumstances.[24]

Turkish national Yesim Cetir underwent a routine surgery in 2011 to treat excessive sweating in her hands, but due to an error her trachea was severely injured and her left lung was damaged.[24][27]:9 She came to Macchiarini at the KI for treatment, and in 2012 he first removed her left lung and replaced her trachea with a pipe, then replaced the pipe with a fully synthetic seeded trachea.[27]:9 The next year the implant collapsed and Macchiarini replaced it with a second one.[27]:9 Cetir had many complications from this procedure, remained in constant need of having her airway cleared, and suffered kidney failure.[27]:9 In 2016 she underwent multiple organ transplants in the U.S., and her trachea was replaced with one from a cadaver.[27]:9 Cetir died in March 2017.[31]

In April 2013, Macchiarini implanted a fully synthetic seeded trachea in two-year-old Hannah Warren, who had been born without one.[32] The operation was performed at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, United States.[32] The operation also involved her esophagus, which didn't heal properly and required a second operation in June; she died 6 July 2013, from complications of the second surgery.[33]

In August 2013 Sadiq Kanaan received a fully synthetic seeded tracheal implant from Macchiarini at Kuban State Medical University.[11][24] He died later the same year.[11]

In June 2014, Macchiarini implanted a fully synthetic seeded trachea in Dmitri Onogda at the Kuban State Medical University.[11][24] The implant failed and was replaced, and as of 2017 Onogda was still alive.[11][24]

In 2012, Macchiarini was arrested in Italy and charged with asking patients at AOUC for money to expedite their procedures;[34] the charges were dismissed in May 2015[35] and the prosecutor's appeal was dismissed in September 2015.[36]

In 2014, Macchiarini was accused by four former colleagues and co-authors of having falsified claims in his research with KI.[37] The following April, KI's ethics committee issued a response to one set of allegations with regard to research ethics and peer review at The Lancet, and found them to be groundless.[38]

KI had also appointed an external expert, Bengt Gerdin, to review the charges, comparing the results reported to the medical record of the hospital; the report was released by the university in May 2015.[39][40][41] Gerdin found that Macchiarini had committed research misconduct in seven papers by not getting ethical approval for the some of his operations, and misrepresenting the result of some of those operations, as well as work he had done in animals.[39][40][42]

In August 2015, after considering the findings and a rebuttal provided by Macchiarini, KI vice-chancellor Anders Hamsten found that he had acted "without due care" but had not committed misconduct.[43][44] The Lancet, which published Macchiarini's work, also published an article defending him.[45]

On 13 January 2016, Gerdin criticized the vice-chancellor's dismissal of the allegations in an interview with Sveriges Television (SVT).[46] Later that day, the SVT investigative program Dokument inifrn began broadcasting a three-part series, titled "Experimenten", in which Macchiarini's work was investigated.[47][48] The documentary shows Macchiarini continuing operations with his new transplant method even after it showed little or no promise, exaggerating the health of his patients in articles as they died. While Macchiarini admitted that the synthetic trachea did not work in the current state, he did not agree that trying it on several additional patients without further testing had been inappropriate. Allegations were also made that patients' medical conditions both before and after the operations, as reported in academic papers, did not match reality. Macchiarini also stated that the synthetic trachea had been tested on animals before using it on humans, something that could not be verified.[10][18][24]

On 28 January, KI issued a statement saying that the documentary made claims of which it was unaware, and that it would consider re-opening the investigations.[49][50] These concerns were echoed by KI's chairman, Lars Leijonborg, and the chairman of the Swedish Medical Association, Heidi Stensmyren, calling for an independent investigation that would also look at how the issue was dealt with by the university and hospital management.[51]

In February 2016, KI published a review of Macchiarini's CV that identified discrepancies.[17] The university announced that it would not renew Macchiarini's research contract, which was due to expire in November, and the next month Karolinska terminated the contract.[10]

In October 2016, the BBC broadcast a three-part Storyville documentary, Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon, directed by Bosse Lindquist and based on the earlier Swedish programmes about Macchiarini.[52] After the special aired, KI requested Sweden's national scientific review board to review six of Macchiarini's publications about the procedures. The board published its findings in October 2017, and concluded that all six were the result of scientific misconduct, in particular by failing to report the complications and deaths that occurred after the interventions; one of the articles also claimed that the procedure had been approved by an ethics committee, when this had not happened. The board called for all six of the papers to be retracted. It also said that all of the co-authors had committed scientific misconduct as well.[15]

The following papers authored by Macchiarini have been retracted:

A story published by Vanity Fair on 5 January 2016 discussed Macchiarini's affair with a journalist, who had written enthusiastic articles about him. The story also called into question statements he had made on his CV.[47][6] The article paints him as a serial fabulist, and as "the extreme form of a con man," remarking that "the fact that he could keep all the details straight and compartmentalize these different lives and lies is really amazing."[6] The article details a courtship and alleged subsequent marriage arrangements from the perspective of a NBC News producer, Benita Alexander. Alexander had been tasked by NBC News to produce a documentary-type programme for Dateline in 2013 called "A Leap of Faith" to portray Macchiarini and she ultimately began an affair with her subject, only to find out later in 2015 that he had been married for thirty years, including the entire period of the courtship. The details recounted in the article include Alexander relating Macchiarini's alleged lies about being a surgeon to the stars and current and former heads of state, and a planned wedding to Alexander to be the social event of the year (with Pope Francis officiating, Andrea Bocelli singing, Enoteca Pinchiorri catering, and numerous celebrities attending), among other reported falsified details about his C.V. and personal life.[6]

Macchiarini is reported to have claimed that Pope Francis had given his personal blessing for the wedding between the couple, both said to be divorcees, and would host the ceremony. The Pope's spokesman said that the Pope had no "personal doctor" named Macchiarini, knew nobody of that name, and would not have officiated.[60]

In August 2021, the third season of the Dr. Death podcast began publishing episodes consisting a six-episode season about Macchiarini, entitled "Miracle Man". The audio series covers the accusations of ethical misconduct and manipulation in Macchiarini's medical work alongside those of his personal deceit in his affair with Alexander, told through a series of interviews with the latter.[61]

The secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, Urban Lendahl, resigned in February 2016, owing to his involvement in recruiting Macchiarini to Karolinska Institutet in 2010.[8][62] Shortly afterwards the vice chancellor, Anders Hamsten, who in 2015 had cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct, also resigned.[9][63]

In August 2016, a committee led by Kjell Asplund that had been called into being in February to investigate the three operations that Macchiarini had performed at the Karolinska University Hospital issued its report, identifying several ethical shortcomings by the hospital and Macchiarini; it also noted the pressure put on the hospital by the institute with regard to Macchiarini's hospital appointment and translational research.[27][64]

Another report was issued in early September that examined the behavior of the institute; it was authored by a committee led by Sten Heckscher. The report found that the institute had conducted almost no diligence in hiring Macchiarini nor in overseeing his work, nor in considering his performance in reviewing his contracts; the committee found that interference from people higher up in management had interfered in the processes.[64][65][66]

On 5 September 2016, the Swedish government moved to dismiss the entire board of the Institute.[67] Shortly afterwards Harriet Wallberg and Anders Hamsten were removed from the judging panel that is responsible for annually choosing the Nobel Prize for Medicine, selection of which is additionally overseen by Karolinska Institutet.[68]

In June 2016 Swedish police opened an investigation into whether Macchiarini might have committed involuntary manslaughter.[11][24] In October 2017, the public prosecutor office announced that all criminal charges against Macchiarini have been dropped, although the medical treatment in four of five cases operated in Sweden was classified as 'negligent' the criminal responsibility cannot be proven.[69] After a one-year medico-legal investigation, the attorney general's office announced in October 2017 that Macchiarini had been negligent in four of the five cases investigated due to the use of devices and procedures not supported by evidence, but that a crime could not be proven because the patients might have died under any other treatment given.[13][14]

In 2019, an Italian court sentenced Macchiarini to sixteen months in prison for abuse of office and forging documents.[70]

On 29 September 2020, Mikael Bjork, director of Public Prosecution in Sweden indicted an unnamed surgeon on charges of aggravated assault. Swedish news agency TT said the indicted surgeon was Dr. Paolo Macchiarini. Bjork said he reopened the investigation in December 2018 and obtained new written evidence and interviewed individuals in five different countries. Bjork said victims received "serious physical injuries and great suffering" as a result of the operations performed on them and that he "made the assessment that the three operations are therefore to be considered as aggravated assault."[70] The trial against Paolo Macchiarini ended on 23 May 2022, and he was found guilty to having caused bodily harm, but not assault. He was received a probationary sentence on 16 June 2022.[71][72]

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Paolo Macchiarini - Wikipedia

By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer, Report for America Corps Member, msayles@afro.com

President Freeman Hrabowski III has led the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), since 1992. After decades of revolutionary leadership, the giant of higher education announced his retirement.

In spite of his profound adoration for the school and its students, Hrabowski is ready for his next chapter in which he will mentor new presidents and provosts at Harvard University. He will also support the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes novel, billion-dollar program to produce more scientists of color.

The program was named after Hrabowski, a privilege he deemed inconceivable.

For a Black kid who went to jail with Dr. King and didnt know what was going to happen, this is an honor I could have never imagined, said Hrabowski.

Born in Birmingham, Ala., Hrabowski grew up in a middle-class family. His parents were teachers, meaning he grew up as privileged as a Black kid could be during the 1950s and 60s in the Deep South.

Living separate but equal, he couldnt go through certain doors, eat-in certain restaurants, or drink out of certain water fountains, but his parents time and time again instructed him to never let anyone else define who he was.

When Hrabowski was 12 years old, he marched in the Birmingham Childrens Crusade. He along with thousands of other youth were taken to jail for their efforts to protest against segregation.

During his week in jail, Hrabowski looked out his cells window and wondered, will I be OK? The experience was a turning point for him.

Hrabowski became the poster child for the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, giving speeches in churches, NAACP meetings, Alabama Christian Movement meetings, and to Black sororities and fraternities.

While his dedication to civil rights never ceased, Hrabowski had another passion: mathematics.

He was a gifted student and dreamed of becoming a math teacher one day because doing arithmetic gave him goosebumps.

His parents were proud graduates of Tuskegee University, and Hrabowski spent much of his time at the campus, which showed him how nurturing historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are.

He knew he had to attend an HBCU after taking summer courses in Massachusetts. There, Hrabowski was the invisible man. His fellow students ignored him, and his teachers refused to speak to him.

At age 15, he attended Hampton University, in spite of his parents desire for him to enroll at Morehouse College, and he completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics at 18. He also met Jacqueline Coleman at the university. She has been his wife for 50 years.

Ever since he was young, Hrabowski wanted to earn a Ph.D., so after graduating from Hampton University, he attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he received his masters in mathematics and then his doctorate in higher education administration.

At 26, Hrabowski became the dean of arts and sciences at Coppin State University and achieved his dream of teaching mathematics. He remained at the school for a decade and exited as vice president of academic affairs when former UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) President, Michael Hooker, offered him the opportunity to become the next provost.

Hrabowski was no stranger to the university, as his wife taught early childhood education and child psychology there. His first impression of the campus was that it was suburban, young and boasted an abundance of bright students.

After several years of serving as provost, he became president of the predominantly White institution.

Hrabowskis tenure as president can be distinguished by its emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

When he took office, UMBC students who studied the STEM disciplines, struggled to attain their degrees, and Black students faced even more challenges than their White counterparts.

He made it his mission to ensure all UMBC students have the ability to succeed in STEM.

Today, UMBC is a Research One (R1) university, the nations highest level of research performance. The school also graduates more Black students who go on to earn doctoral degrees in natural sciences and engineering than any other U.S. college. It is also the number one institution to produce Black graduates who go on to earn M.D. and Ph.D.s.

The Black graduation rates are as higher than any other institution, and half of our Black students are male, which is unheard of in American education, said Hrabowski.

His most cherished memories of UMBC involve witnessing former retrievers, the universitys mascot, excel in their careers.

Most notably, UMBC is credited for having the first Black woman to create a vaccine, Kissmekia Corbett. She was a student in the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which was designed to prepare minority students for STEM disciplines, and graduated from the university in 2008.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she played an instrumental role in the development of the Moderna vaccine.

Hrabowski said he hopes hes left a legacy at UMBC that students of all races can excel.

Valerie Sheares Ashby will become the universitys next president, the first woman to hold the position, and Hrabowski has no doubt that she will continue to propel the university forward.

Help us Continue to tell OUR Story and join the AFRO family as a member subscribers are now members! Joinhere!

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President Freeman Hrabowski prepares for retirement after turning UMBC into the top producer of Black M.D., Ph.D. graduates - Afro American

In the fall of her freshman year, Sarah Holdrup, a senior majoring in environmental engineering, received a lower grade than her male lab partner, despite turning in the same lab report. When she met with the professor to question the grade, the professor told her this was something she should expect in a workforce where she would be paid less and be listened to less than her male colleagues.

At The University of Alabama, women make up 20% of the faculty in the College of Engineering and 27% of the faculty in Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Holdrup didnt let this experience stop her from pursuing her degree, and that spring, she joined the Universitys chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. She is now the president of the organization and recently received the Guiding Star award for her significant contributions to the section and the UA campus.

The organization connected Holdrup with other female engineering majors who shared similar experiences, recommended professors and classes, and encouraged her through challenging classes.

Alina Iliescu, a senior majoring in aerospace engineering, also found a community of women in UA Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics, a professional development organization and a social club that builds a community within the aerospace discipline.

Iliescu said she experienced impostor syndrome, a feeling of not belonging, from being in these difficult classes as a woman.

It was nice having a little support group with people that are going through the same thing, Iliescu said. The social meetings really help the girls get to know each other and make friends within aerospace, because like I said, its kind of hard meeting other women in aerospace.

Katie OHarra, an assistant professor of chemical engineering in the Honors College, said she recognized this gender imbalance during her undergraduate classes at the University from 2013 to 2017. In her four years, she only had two female professors in her science, technology, engineering and mathematics classes.

This bothered her because she knew it didnt reflect the changing engineering student gender demographics. This thought motivated her to teach in graduate school and become a mentor to nine undergraduate chemical engineering majors, eight of whom were women.

If you can go through your entire four-year curriculum and not experience a different perspective or lived experience, that can be kind of frustrating, especially if you want to envision yourself in that role, OHarra said.

Now, OHarra leads the Engineering Positive and Intentional Change Scholars Program. Through the four-year curriculum, honors engineering students learn about the broader impacts of engineering on social justice and the environment.

Just because you dont necessarily see yourself represented there yet doesnt mean thats not the place for you, OHarra said. Sometimes you might be the only woman in the room, but youre there for a reason. You should be there to contribute your unique perspective and experiences that only you can bring to the table.

As the first Black woman in Alabama to earn a doctorate in physics, Shelia Nash-Stevenson often remembers being the only woman in her workroom.

Nash-Stevenson has worked at Marshall Space Flight Center for over 30 years and currently works as a science projects manager. She now works under the first female director of Marshall Space Flight Center, UA alumna Jody Singer.

The glass ceiling has been broken, Nash-Stevenson said. Theres more and more females coming up that are able to take on those responsibilities that have been traditionally male responsibilities. Females are doing a great job at Marshall and at NASA.

According to the U.S. Census, since 1970, the share of women in the science, technology, engineering and math workforces has increased from 8% to 27%.

Jules Bates, a junior majoring in chemical engineering, said she believes the work of these women has impacted her academic journey as a woman in STEM.

The fact that Im not really able to think of anything that has set me back and set me apart from my male peers, it really speaks volumes to the work that has already been put in to make engineering and especially chemical engineering more equal and have more equal opportunities, Bates said.

Bates recently received the Goldwater Scholarship for her research on using stem cells to treat epilepsy.

When I got the Goldwater, this was after I had already been researching for two years, it meant a lot because it was a huge payoff from the work I have been doing, Bates said. It just gave me some inspiration that I am following the goals that I set for myself and I am on the right track.

Nash-Stevenson said she encourages women in STEM to connect with other women, stick together and make sure they succeed.

When I was in school, there were very few females in STEM fields. Those that were, we hung out together, studied together and encouraged each other because we had the same capabilities and sometimes more than our male counterparts, Nash-Stevenson said. People will tell you you cant do it, but its not their decision.

Questions? Email the culture desk at culture@cw.ua.edu.

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Women find community in STEM fields at UA - The University of Alabama Crimson White

Efforts are underway to raise money for Axl and Corbyn Hartzog, who are two-year-old identical twin boys that have been diagnosed with two rare bone marrow failure diseases.

A Poker Run has been scheduled for Saturday, April 9 with stops at The Honky Tonk, Bama Bar, Adams Bar, and Charleys Place. Registration begins at 10:30 a.m. with all vehicles welcome for a kickstand going up at noon. T-shirts will be available, and there will be a 50/50 drawing. An auction will be held, and the cost is $10 per hand.

Axl and Corbyn are true definitions of miracle boys. After many years of infertility, their parents created embryos and decided to use a gestational surrogate to carry their embryos. The surrogate delivered the twins at 31 weeks and one day after doctors were not able to stop preterm labor. The twins were born weighing just a little over 3 pounds and spent 33 days in the NICU growing and getting strong enough to go home. Axl and Corbyn began having severe neutropenia and bacterial infections that ended in hospital stays due to their low neutrophil counts. After almost a year of testing, doctors and other medical research teams have diagnosed the boys with Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome and a Telomere Biological Disorder Dyskeratosis Congentia, a Be the Match statement read.

Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome is an inherited bone marrow failure syndrome that affects one in 80,000 with no cure. The twins also have a biological telomere syndrome that affects one in a million people that causes multi-organ failure and an increased risk of cancer. There is also no cure for the telomere syndrome.

Axl and Corbyn are strong and fearless. They enjoy helping their daddy and mommy on the family farm feeding cows, all things dinosaurs, police, and firemen. When asked what they want to be when they grow up, they answer that they want to be big and strong like Hulk. You could be their life-saving cure, Be the Match added.

The twins are monitored at Childrens of Alabama Oncology/Hematology and also Cincinnati Childrens Bone Marrow Failure Clinic. The twins and their family are involved in several research studies to hopefully find a cure for their boys one day.

According to Be the Match, there are two ways to donate blood stem cells: PBSC and marrow. Most adult donors (80 percent) are asked to provide blood stem cells collected from circulating blood. This is called a peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation. It is similar to donating platelets or plasma. Some donors (20 percent) are asked to provide blood stem cells collected from bone marrow. The blood stem cells are withdrawn from the donors pelvic bone. Those ready to donate must confirm they are between the ages of 18 and 40, meet the health guidelines as part of the registration process, and be willing to donate to any patient in need.

For more information and to pre-order t-shirts or be a sponsor, call Cynthia at 334-764-4262 or April at 850-612-6858.

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Poker Run event planned to benefit twins with rare syndrome - The Andalusia Star-News - Andalusia Star-News

The worlds biggest listed pure-play stem cell developer has a busy slate of clinical work, notably in therapies for advanced heart failure, chronic back pain and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD).

Now these programs are approaching a thrilling denouement and, as the Demtel man enthused, theres more: Mesoblast (ASX:MSB) is also undertaking an expanded coronavirus trial after a 12-patient effort showed promising results in treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (Ards), the usual cause of death with COVID-19.

The patients received infusions of Mesoblasts allogeneic (off the shelf) mesenchymal stem cell candidate, remestemcel-L, acquired from Osiris for $106m in 2013.

Meanwhile, results from two phase III trials are expected this (September) quarter: a 566-patient effort for chronic heart failure and a 404-patient trial for chronic lower back pain caused by disc degeneration.

And in September, the US Food and Drug Administration will rule on whether or not the company can market its GvHD therapy on American shores.

Mesoblast founder and CEO Prof Silviu Itescu notes that across all its therapies the company is targeting the most severe cases where alternative therapies dont exist.

Mesoblasts proprietary process selects precursor and stem cells from the bone marrow of healthy adults, creating a master cell bank. This cell kitty is then expanded into thousands of doses for off-the-shelf use, without the need for tissue matching.

Mesoblast is targeting a common market across all its disease indications: inflammation. In the case of heart disease, tissue macrophages (cells) churn out inflammatory factors that damage heart muscle and cause fibrosis and vascular dysfunction.

The stem cells respond to severe inflammation by switching the culprit macrophages off and converting them to nice cells that actually protect the heart muscle.

This is the central mechanism in each of our disease states: heart failure, back pain, GvHD and rheumatoid arthritis, Professor Itescu says. We have the potential to make a big difference in some very big disease states where inflammation is central.

Backed by the Pratt familys listed investment vehicle Thorney Investments, Mesoblast debuted on the ASX in 2004 and reached a peak valuation of $2.5bn in 2011 before suffering a reality check.

Culprits included a phase II heart trial that failed to meet primary endpoints, a badly executed Nasdaq listing and Israel pharma house Teva Pharmaceuticals decision to walk away from a heart program partnership in 2016.

Mesoblast dual listed on the Nasdaq in November 2015, accompanied by a $US63m capital raising.

The companys Ards and GvHD programs are based on mesenchymal stem cell assets acquired from US pharma group Osiris Therapeutics in October 2013.

Mesoblasts own-developed cells are called mesenchymal precursor cells and they are being developed for rheumatoid arthritis and diabetic nephropathy, as well as the aforementioned heart failure and lower back pain programs.

Ards is bought on by an excessive immune response to the virus in the lungs. The immune cells produce inflammatory cytokines, which destroy lung tissue and can also damage the liver, kidney and heart.

Remestemcell-L has the potential to tame the cytokine storm in Ards and may offer a life-saving treatment for those unfortunate individual sufferers of COVID-19 Ards, Professor Itescu says.

Mesoblasts COVID-19 proclamations have been coming so thick and fast that its been Ard(s) just to keep up. But the core excitement cluster was around Mesoblasts April 23 disclosure of the results of the trial at New Yorks Mt Sinai Hospital, covering moderate to acute Ards cases.

Under the compassionate use protocol, the patients were treated with two infusions of remestemcel-L over the first five days.

The results? Nine of the 12 patients came off a ventilator within a median 10 days, with 83 per cent survival (the Grim Reapers spin on this is that two of them died).

In comparison, only 9 per cent of patients at one reference hospital (38 out of 445 patients) were able to come off the ventilator with standard-of-care treatment.

Another US hospital reported that only 38 patients of 320 or 12 per cent survived.

Of course, 12 people good and true are adequate numbers for a jury, but sub-optimal to comprise a statistically significant trial.

Thus, the company is enrolling 300 patients in a phase III, randomised, controlled trial of severe Ards patients at 30 sites.

The first patients were dosed in early May, with about 15 sites established as the company chases the disease from the northeast to the southern states.

Mesoblast chief medical officer Professor Fred Grossman says the company is carefully choosing hot spots such as Alabama which, as of late May had the no vacancy signs outside its intensive care wards.

The sites are recruiting quite quickly, he says. There is a tremendous interest in this study.

The trial leaders will undertake an interim analysis at 30 days, and when 30 per cent of patients have reached their primary endpoint. At that point the trial can be dumped on futility grounds, or expanded to the control group because it appears to be working.

Remestemcell-L has investigational new drug (IND) status with the US Food and Drug Administration, meaning the company swiftly can initiate trials on patients with very dismal prospects.

Long-suffering Mesoblast investors will recall that the companys shares tumbled 28 per cent in November 2018 after a 159-patient trial of Rexlemestrocel-L (Revascor) for end-stage heart failure did not meet its primary endpoint of weaning patients from left ventricle assist devices (LVADs or heart pumps).

The company claimed the endpoint was set by the independent !!! investigators and was of little real clinical interest. What really mattered was that the trial showed reduced gastrointestinal bleeding by 76 per cent and hospitalisations by 65 per cent.

Investors are now nervously awaiting the first readout of the broader 566-patient chronic heart failure trial across 59 US sites.

Mesoblast targeted patients with class three or four disease, the sickest 15 to 20 per cent of patients who have failed standard-of-care drugs.

Class three patients have a 20 per cent chance of dying within two years while with class four its a case of flip a coin that you will be around in 12 months.

At this stage, Mesoblast retains its heart treatment rights except in China, where it is partnered with Tasly Pharmaceutical.

Mesoblasts phase III back pain trial aimed to enroll 404 patients with lower back pain caused by degenerative disc disease.

The endpoint of the trial, dubbed MPC-06-ID, is an improvement in pain and function over 24 months.

As with the heart trial, results are imminent and its a toss-up as to what release will hit the ASX announcements feed first.

The company is liaising with its global back pain partner Grunenthal GmbH about the clinical protocol for a European phase III confirmatory trial.

In Japan, Mesoblast is partnered with JCR Pharmaceutical for its approved GvHD treatment called Temcell and its off and racing in that smallish but enthusiastic market.

Meanwhile, the company is angling to enter the US market for a similar GvHD treatment, branded Ryoncil.

GvHD afflicts about half of the 30,000 patients annually undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplant, typically for blood cancers, with their bodies rejecting the alien transplant.

In March, the FDA granted priority review with a September 30 action date, but we might have a good idea of the outcome in August.

Why? Because thats when the FDAs relevant advisory committee meets to vote on the matter and the (virtual) gathering is open to the public.

A date is yet to be set. While advisory committee views are not binding on the FDA, they usually presage the final decision.

If approved, Mesoblast could be selling Ryoncil in the US by the time were carving the Christmas turkey (badly, in the case of your columnist).

Buoyed by the COVID-19 results, Mesoblast in May wasted no time tapping institutional investors for an idle $US90m ($129.6m) in a placement.

Mesoblast already had a healthy cash balance of $US60m.

The raising was struck at $3.20 a share, a modest 7 per cent discount to the prevailing price.

The funds, in the main, will be used to scale-up manufacturing of remestemcell-L and to support the phase III trial, as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes.

The company also has $US67m available through existing financing facilities and partnerships.

Mesoblast reported revenue of $US31.45m for the nine months to March 2020, up 113 per cent. The reported loss narrowed 34 per cent to $US45.3m, reflecting curtailed research and development spend by $US7.5m, or 15 per cent.

The revenue included $US5.9m of JCR royalties from Temcell sales in Japan and milestone revenue of $US25m.

The company stands to pocket up to $US150m of royalties and milestones from Grunenthal prior to any European launch of Revascor.

Successful sales could result in up to $US1bn in milestone payments.

Over the last decade, Mesoblasts ASX shares have traded as high as $9 (October 2011) and as low as $1.03 (December last year).

To the Meso-sceptics the company has promised far too much with limited commercial success, while raising $1bn since listing 16 years ago.

Dare we say that Mesoblast now looks more focused and to be getting somewhere?

When we last covered Mesoblast in March 2019, Professor Itescu said he was 95 per cent certain the company would do what no other Aussie biotech in phase III had done: win FDA drug approval.

Well, Clinuvel has stolen that Aussie first honour, but Mesoblast is well placed to get over the line with a GvHD treatment in the US, which presents a market eight times the size of Japans.

Its certainly rare for a biotech to expect results for three major trials and a key regulatory decision in the space of months.

If the heart and back pain results are definitively positive and the FDA green lights GvHD, the company hits the jackpot. If two or more of them bomb lets not go there.

Your ultra conservative columnist regards the COVID-19 stuff as the icing on the cake with an outside chance of success, especially given the hundreds of other programs in the coronavirus-busting sector.

Disclosure: Dr Boreham is not a qualified medical practitioner and does not possess a doctorate of any sort. But he hopes to become proficient in turkey carving by December 25.

This column first appeared in Biotech Daily.

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Dr Borehams Crucible: Mesoblast within months of 3 major trial results, key regulatory decision - Stockhead