Volume XXX. Number 3
Committed to C ultural Diversity
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www.theportlandobserver.com
All About
My Mother is
a hit
Vietnam
widows
remember
January IV, 2000
sir
See inside
Dr. Martin
Luther King
Jr. Special
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Portland, OR
Permit No. 1610
University of Oregon
PSU president takes over as chair of Urban League
Bernstine ttakes over position,
intent on continuing goals o f the
Urban League
Directors.
“This is the moment in the rebuilding o f the Urban League
when it can most profit from announcing a new leadership
team. I am delighted that Dan Bernstine will begin as Chairof
the Board,” said Bosworth
COISTRIBUTEDSTORV
Interim Executiv e Director o f the Urban League, Margaret
tor T in: P ortland O bsers yr
Carter said, “Because o f Duane’s passion for this community
and the things that he was able to do, he brought heart to the
It was announced Tuesday Jan 11,1999, Bernstine will assume
Urban League. He cared about the kids, the elderly and the
the role o f Chair o f Urban League, effective immediately.
community. Dan willequallycarry on this legacyofcaring. He
Bernstine, who has served as a member o f the Board since
will also bring a different leadership style and an increased
January 1998, was
fo cus
on
....... ......... "
selected to take over
fu n d ra isin g and
“This is the moment in the rebuilding o f the Urban
as Chair because of
meeting the bottom
his commitment to
line. It will be a
League when it can most profit from announcing a
the continuation of
w o n d e rfu l
new leadership team. I am delighted that Dan
the Urban League
transition for the
and the service that
Urban League and
Bernstine will begin as Chair o f the Board. ” said
it provides. He is
for the people that
Duane Bosworth, former chairperson.
succeeding Duane
the league serves.”
Bosworth, a local
Bernstine said that
attorney who has serv ed as Chair for the past three years and
he hopes to share the talents o f PSU and the experience o f
who will continue to serve as a member o f the Board o f
(Please se e 'U rb a n 'o n page 6)
M argaret Carter
Dan Bernstine
OHSU researchers clone twin monkeys by splitting embryos
*
A ssociated P ress
Researchers using a technique called
em bryo sp littin g hope to grow
genetically identical rhesus monkeys
in the laboratory _ a breakthrough
that would enable experiments such
as growing new organs from stem
cells to be tested on monkeys rather
than mice. Monkeys are closer to
human biology.
The technique has so far produced
only one living rhesus monkey, a
female named Tetra, but Professor
Gerald Schatten said that four more
twinned infants are on the way.
Schatten, a researcher at the Oregon
H ealth S cien ces U n iv e rsity in
Portland, said the goal is to produce
identical monkeys that could be used
to perfect new therapies for human
disease.
The study appears Friday in the
journal Science.
T he P h y sician s C om m ittee for
Responsible Medicine objected to
the technique, saying monkeys suffer
in research labs. “Making one monkey
more si mi lar to another does not make
them any more like humans,” said Dr.
N eal D. B arnard, the g ro u p ’s
president. “They are not good models
for human health problems. In fact,
animal experimentation does a terrible
disservice to people with chronic
disease.”
Most medical therapies are now first
tested in mice, but monkeys would be
more reliable in developing daring
new techn iques such as gene therapy
or growing new organs from stem
cells, said Schatten.
“ It is a huge leap from a mouse to a
p a tie n t,” said S c h a tte n . “ T he
monkeys could fill that scientific gap.
“ Medical research needs to have
healthy, genetically-identical animals
so cures can be perfected before they
are tested on humans,” he said.
In their research, Schatten and his
colleagues created monkey embryos
in the laboratory by combining sperm
and egg.
When the embryos grew to an eight
cell stage, they were each split into
four parts, with each part containing
two cells. These were then nurtured
into new embryos.
In effect, he said, the single embryo
became four embryos, all genetically
identical. The new embryos were then
implanted into the uteri o f different
mothers.
In the first test o f the technique, the
researchers produced asingleanimal,
named Tetra. A twin to Tetra was
implanted, but miscarried.
Now, said Schatten, four mother
monkeys are pregnant with cells taken
from two separate embryos. Three o f
the mothers were implanted with two
unrelated embryo splits and the
fourth mother was impregnated with
a single embryo split.
Schatten said it will not be known
until May, when the animals are bom,
w hich o f the split em bryos are
developing into infants.
“ It is likely that we will have
genetically identical monkeys bom
to different mothers,” he said.
Gerald Schatten, a researcher at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, poses in a
lab Thursday, Jan. 13, 2000, in Portland, Ore. Schatten and a team o f researchers successfully
cloned a rhesus monkey, using a technique called embryo splitting. They hope to grow
genetically identical rhesus moneys in the laboratory.
Martin Luther King Jr. remembered
A Call to Action
is this years special
edition in tribute to the
late Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. Inside you will
fin d photos and works
by, for, and about the
movement that King
began.
Weather
Friday
Throug' 08130734
"
t
48°F /8°C
33°F /0°C
A few
clouds
46°F /7°C
36°F /2°C
Saturday
46°F /7°C
34°F /2°C
Sunday
45°F /7°C
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Partially
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«
45°F /7°C
33°F /1°C
Inside-A
Week in Review................... 2
CDC confronts AIDS in
African Americans.................. 3
Vietnam widows highlighted by
OPB........................................ 5
UPS engages recruitment
drive.........................................6
The technique is not cloning in the
sense o f p ro d u c in g a g en etic
duplicate o f an adult, such as was
accomplished with the famed Scottish
ew e named Dolly.
Instead, said Schatten, the technique
clones genetically identical infants
that arose from the same embryo. It is
virtually unknow n, he said, for
identical twin rhesus monkeys to be
produced naturally.
Schatten said that g en etically -
identical monkeys could be used to
develop treatments using embryonic
stem cells, the ancestral cells from
which all organs and tissue grow
during gestation. Research using
human em bryonic stem cells is
controversial because to produce the
cells requires the death o f an embryo.
Stem cell research, however, offers
the promise of growing new organs
to replace ailing hearts or livers, or to
cure diabetes.
His research, said Schatten. may make
it possible to split a monkey embryo
and use one part to produce a live
m onkey, w hile using the other
embryos parts to produce stem cells.
Those stem cells would be genetic
matches to the live monkey. The stem
cells could then be used to grow new
organs, which could then be tested
on the live monkey.
For instance, he said, genetically-
matched stem cells could be used to
grow insulin-producing organs that
could then be transplanted into the
live monkeys to test a promising
technique for curing diabetes.
Metro-B
Bobby fields passes
away..........................................2
Patricia Roberts Harris' new
commemorative stamp............ 5
All about my mother develops
into great film.......................... 6
El Observador......................... 4
On this day in ISOM. Edgar A llan Poe,
famous author ot macabre tales and originator
ot the modem detective story, was bom in
Boston. Massachusetts
On January 24, 1X48. James W Marshall
discovered gold on the property Of Johann
A. Sutter near Coloma, California.
On January 25. 1890. police cleared a path
through a cheering crowd for reporter Nellie
Bly as she stepped o ff a train in New York
just 72 days. 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14
seconds after setting sail east to prove she
could circle the globe in less than 80 days.