HeLa

• KANAZAWA, Japan, Aug. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers at Kanazawa University report in Analytical Chemistry how to produce nanopipettes that reliably provide nanoscale resolution scanning ion conductance microscopy images of living cells.
• Now researchers led by Yasufumi Takahashi at Kanazawa University's Nano LSI and Nagoya University have devised a protocol for reproducibly fabricating nanopipettes with the preferred geometry for high quality imaging.
• Scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) uses a nanopipette to control the nanopipette-samples distance using an ion current as feedback signal.
• Nanopipette Fabrication Guidelines for SICM Nanoscale Imaging, Analytical Chemistry August 20, 2023.

• During her treatment, a sample of her cancer cells was taken without her knowledge or consent.
• Henrietta Lacks’ cells, known as HeLa cells, have had a profound impact on medical science since they were first taken from Lacks in 1951.
• Lacks is one of the most well-known examples of medical exploitation on a Black body.

Medical abuse is a part of Black history

• Medical exploitation and intentional abuse of members of the Black community is an often overlooked part of Black history.
• The Tuskegee experiment is one of the most well-known examples of medical exploitation in the Black community.
• But as revealed in medical ethicist Harriet A. Washington’s groundbreaking book “Medical Apartheid,” the medical exploitation of the Black community extended far beyond Tuskegee.

Grave robbing in Black communities

• In turn, more cadavers were needed, but the demand for cadavers far exceeded the supply.
• The solution at the time was grave robbing.
• At the turn of the 18th century, most of New York City’s dissection tables were full of Black bodies, despite members of the Black community’s accounting for only 15% of the population at the time.

Unethical experiments on the incarcerated

• From the 1950s through the 1970s, Philadelphia health officials allowed the prominent researcher Dr. Albert M. Kligman to conduct dangerous experiments on incarcerated people, most of whom were Black.
• Kligman repeatedly and purposely exposed Black men to dermatological, biochemical and pharmaceutical experiments.
• The city of Philadelphia and related institutions officially apologized in October 2022, but the apology does not remedy the lifelong scars and lingering health impacts from the experiments.
• Incarcerated individuals in Arkansas were given a cocktail of drugs, including Ivermectin, to treat COVID-19.

Why it matters

• It is also important to show how racism is still prevalent in contemporary medicine and public health.
• The study further found that nearly half of the medical students in the study believed Black people have less sensitive nerve endings.
• It’s my belief that revealing the dark history of medical racism is key to making sure that past injustices do not recur.

• The data show rAAV production with this cell line, Agathos BHK-[wt E1], using a standard triple transfection method.
• The BHK-[wt E1] data will be presented in a poster titled “E1-transformed BHK Cell Lines for Helper Virus-Free AAV Production Using Triple Transfection”, number 1221 , and the GH329 data will be presented in a poster titled “Use of the GH329 Cell Line for Adeno-Associated Virus Production”, number 397 .
• (Photo: Business Wire)
  “We are excited to present our data that show rAAV production in Agathos BHK-[wt E1] and GH329,” said James Brown, CEO and co-founder of Agathos Biologics.
• Agathos Biologics is a biotechnology company pursuing transformational science in biomanufacturing, biologic payload delivery, and cell and gene therapy.

• ET
  BEDMINSTER, N.J., Jan. 30, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Matinas BioPharma (NYSE AMER: MTNB, Matinas), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on redefining the intracellular delivery of nucleic acids and small molecules with its lipid nanocrystal (LNC) platform technology, today is providing a business update on its ongoing programs and discussing its strategic outlook for 2023.
• Our ongoing collaborations with BioNTech and, recently, National Resilience, have aligned Matinas with two of the world’s leading companies in the gene therapy space.
• The Company will host a live conference call and webcast to discuss this corporate update and 2023 business outlook today, Monday, January 30 at 4:30 p.m.
• The live webcast will be accessible on the Investors section of Matinas BioPharma’s website, www.matinasbiopharma.com , and archived for 90 days.