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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 8, 2019)
OFF PAGE ONE Tuesday, October 8, 2019 East Oregonian A7 3 win Nobel Prize for showing how cells sense low oxygen By MALCOLM RITTER AND MARIA CHENG Associated Press NEW YORK — Two Americans and a British scientist won a Nobel Prize on Monday for discovering details of how the body’s cells sense and react to low oxygen levels, providing a foothold for developing new treatments for anemia, can- cer and other diseases. Drs. William G. Kaelin Jr. of Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Gregg L. Semenza of Johns Hopkins Univer- sity and Peter J. Ratcliffe at the Francis Crick Institute in Britain and Oxford Uni- versity won the prize for advances in physiology or medicine. The scientists, who worked largely inde- pendently, will share the $918,000 cash award, said the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. They “revealed the mech- anism for one of life’s most essential adaptive pro- cesses,” the Nobel commit- tee said. Cells can encounter low- ered oxygen not only from situations like living at high altitudes, but also from things like a wound that interferes with local blood supply. Their response trig- gers reactions that include producing red blood cells, generating new blood vessels and fine-tuning the immune AP Photo/Elise Amendola William G. Kaelin Jr., left, stands with his son, Tripp, at a news conference on Monday in Bos- ton, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. system. The Nobel committee said scientists are focused on developing drugs that can treat diseases by either acti- vating or suppressing the oxygen-sensing machinery. Such manipulation could help in attacking cancer cells, experts said. Another payoff is pills to boost production of red blood cells in anemia, which can appear in people with chronic kidney disease. One such drug has been approved in China and Japan and a fil- ing for approval in the U.S. is expected soon, Kaelin said. Still other potential tar- gets include heart attack and stroke, and a condition of reduced blood flow in the limbs that can lead to ampu- tation, the researchers said. Kaelin, 61, said he was half-asleep when the phone rang Monday morning with the news of his award. “I don’t usually get phone calls at 5:00 in the morn- ing, so, naturally, my heart started racing and I could see the call was from Stock- holm,” he said. “And so I think at that point I almost had an out-of-body type of experience.” Kaelin is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which also sup- ports AP’s Health and Sci- ence department. Ratcliffe, 65, said he learned the news after he was summoned out of a meet- ing this morning by his sec- retary, who had “a look of urgency.” Trained as a kidney spe- cialist, Ratcliffe said his research began when he and colleagues simply wanted to figure out how cells sense oxygen. “I thought it was a defin- able problem and just thought we’d find out how it worked,” he said. It was about two years into their research pro- gram, which began in 1990, that they realized the discov- ery had much wider signifi- cance, Ratcliffe said. “We saw that it wasn’t just cells in the kidney that know how to sense oxygen, but all cells in the body. ... There are hundreds and thousands of processes the body uses to adapt to and regulate its oxy- gen levels.” He said while some prom- ising drugs have been devel- oped, it will be years before it’s clear whether such dis- coveries are going to change the lives of tens of thousands. In Baltimore, Semenza, 63, said he slept through the Nobel committee’s ini- tial phone call. “By the time I got to the phone it was too late,” he said. He went back to sleep but was able to answer the second call from Stockholm. He said kidney cancer may be the first malignancy in which a drug based on the prize-winning work might make chemotherapy more effective, and that he hopes many other cancers will follow. Speaking at a news con- ference at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Med- icine, Semenza paid tribute to his biology teacher, Rose Nelson, at Sleepy Hollow High School in Sleepy Hol- low, N.Y., for inspiring his pursuit of medicine. “She used to say, ‘Now when you win your Nobel Prize, I don’t want you to forget that you learned that here,’” he said. “It’s my great sadness that she is not still alive to share the moment because I know it would have meant a lot to her. She was my inspiration.” “That’s the importance of teachers,” he added. “To make that kind of spark.” Steven McKnight of the UT Southwestern Medi- cal Center in Dallas noted that the process discovered by the three researchers is widespread in the animal kingdom, found even in the worm. He said the honored work is “of a heroic nature.” Last year, James Alli- son of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work in immunotherapy, activating the body’s natural defense system to fight tumors. Monday’s announcement kicked off this year’s Nobel Prizes. The physics prize will be handed out Tues- day, followed by the chem- istry prize on Wednesday. This year there is a double- header for the Nobel Lit- erature Prize — one each for 2018 and 2019 — which will be awarded Thursday. The Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The 2018 Nobel Literature prize was suspended after a sex abuse scandal rocked the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the litera- ture prizes, so two prizes are being awarded this year. Logo: Bucking horse used to sell marijuana in local smoke shop Continued from Page A1 multiple phone calls, emails and texts from people con- cerned about trademark infringement. “It created quite a stir among board and commu- nity members,” O’Neill said. “There was disbelief that there would be such bla- tant disregard for its use.” It got worse. O’Neill and Nick Sirovatka, the Round-Up director who chairs the trademark com- mittee, looked at the shop’s Facebook site and found a profile image showing a drawing of a bucking horse with a mane and tail of can- nabis leaves and smoking what looks like a joint. The rider clutches a bong in one hand and a vape pen in the other. The phrase “Let ‘er Burn” appears below. As of Monday, the online image remained. The sighting brought further consternation. Not only is the bucking horse trademarked, but so is the phrase “Let ‘Er Buck.” The slogan is frequently altered and it’s difficult to ride herd on a twist of a phrase. But the bucking horse is a dif- ferent matter. O’Neill paid Thur’s Smoke Shop a visit to voice his displeasure. He explained that the bucking horse is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and is thus protected. The Round-Up paid Wal- lace Smith $250 for the bucking horse drawing, reg- istered it in 1925 and started using the image as a logo. The smoke shop owner promised to remove the banner and O’Neill thanked him. He said last week that he planned to follow up with a cease-and-desist let- ter. A visual inspection on Monday showed no sign of Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Signs outside of Thur’s Smoke Shop at 502 S.E. 16th St. in Pendleton advertise the newly opened business. Staff photo by Kathy Aney, File Dave O’Neill, president of the Pendleton Round-Up Association, races around the arena during the opening moments of the rodeo. the poster. O’Neill thinks the inci- dent, rather public because of the media exposure, is a teachable moment. Trademark infringement is something the Round-Up deals with regularly. The association engages two law firms to guard its registered trademarks. Sirovatka said modifying an image to be slightly different from the registered image won’t pro- tect one from trademark law if the image is confusingly similar to the original. “Trademark law helps address the situation if someone is very obviously trying to capitalize on the momentum and impact of our brand and is just chang- ing it a little bit trying to skirt around the rules and regulations,” Sirovatka said. “The bucking horse in these images represents our organization and our community,” O’Neill said. “It’s up to us to make sure it is used properly and with our permission. The image is very valuable, not just because it is our communi- ty’s and our organization’s icon, but it tells our story. We don’t want to dilute its use.” The Round-Up Associ- ation has crafted in-depth licensing agreements with certain organizations and businesses for use of the bucking horse. They include the Pendleton Police Department, Pendleton High School, Vogt’s Silver, Montana Silver, Pendleton Whisky and others the asso- ciation decides fit with the mission of the organization. Often community groups apply for one-time use of the bucking horse. “The PHS class of 1979 wanted to put the buck- ing horse on a water bottle. That kind of stuff,” Siro- vatka said. “We allowed the Junior Livestock Show to put the bucking horse on some prizes. We are more than happy to support civic groups.” “We’ve granted use to a lot of civic groups for a lot of things,” O’Neill said. “Once we grant permission, we make sure they use it prop- erly with the right images and right files, the right color schemes, the right details and the right font.” O’Neill said the asso- ciation hasn’t taken any- one to court yet even when “a major apparel company” used the bucking horse. He declined to identify the company, saying the misuse had been resolved. “The court has never had to rule one way or another,” he said. “If we can’t resolve through letters and phone calls, if there’s any defi- ance, we get our lawyers involved.” That’s usually enough even when the offender is online. “I give them the regis- tration number and say go to the U.S. Patent and Trade Association website and see that we have that registra- tion,” Sirovatka said. “More often than not, we’ll get an ‘Oh, my gosh, I didn’t even know.’ Most of them are very apologetic and will pull the offending item out of their online store and just end up sending an ‘I won’t ever do it again’ email back to me.” Some possible infringe- ments are noticed and ignored if they are deemed innocuous, such as a local coffee business called Pend- leton Ground-Up. “Everybody in town knows where they are going with that or where they got that, but is it really in our best interests to try to address it?” Sirovatka said. “It tiptoes along that ‘con- fusingly similar’ line.” The association holds a registered trademark for the name Pendleton Round-Up (though the Pendleton Woolen Mills owns the mark for the word “Pendleton”). There are other registrations for the Let ’er Buck Room and the RU brand logo. The Round-Up also holds inter- national trademark registra- tions with at least 90 coun- tries involved in the Madrid Protocol System, which allows for international reg- istration of marks. For those interested in getting permission to use the bucking horse, there is a process. Call the Round-Up office to get started. The trademark committee con- siders requests and usu- ally makes a determination within four days. O’Neill said the deci- sion to grant use isn’t made lightly. “We spend an enor- mous amount of focus on the brand,” O’Neill said. “It’s not just the monetary value, it’s our image. It tells a great story. We don’t want it diluted.” ——— Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0810. Fire: Investigators cannot find cause IMESD: Funding Continued from Page A1 store is irrelevant to the investigation. The build- ing was old and sometime ago grandfathered into the code, Penninger said, so there was nothing illegal about people staying there. Laura Thornton said she lived in the apartment as the store’s manager for the last three years and lost everything she owned in the fire. We Sell Stuff owner Greg Dixson maintained Thornton kept watch on the place at night, but she laundered her clothes and bathed at his home. “No, I wouldn’t say she was living there,” he said, but he is aware she is upset with him. He said he heard about that because she and her significant other live at his home now for free. Dixson said he is sure the fire started with a faulty electrical outlet, one he had problems with in the past. “I thought I had fixed it,” he said. “Apparently not.” His main concern remains how to restart his business. He said he has two trucks with perhaps $4,000-$5,000 worth of goods, but he needs a place to sell them. Building owner Henry Lorenzen said he has yet to decide what to do. He said he has secured the build- ing, per city law, which also gives him 60 days to provide the city man- ager a letter on whether he will demolish the building or rebuild. Before he can decide, Lorenzen said, he needs to hear from insur- ance inspectors and the like. The building lies within Pendleton’s urban renewal district, which under city code means he has six months from the date of the fire to start demoli- tion, repairs or replace- ment and 12 months in all to finish. However, the code also allows building owners and managers to seek extensions from the city manager. teacher resources Continued from Page A1 Mulvihill said with the implementation of the bil- lion-dollar Student Suc- cess Plan from legislators this year, districts might be adding positions rather than cutting them, which might exacerbate the state- wide teacher shortage issue, as fewer people enter and stay in the teaching profession. He said retaining new teachers has a lot to do with the training resources avail- able to newer teachers. “Really the most criti- cal factor in my research is that in the first three years, it makes or breaks you. If you make it to your sixth year, you’ll probably finish a 30-year career,” Mulvihill said. “The retention piece falls in the middle of this. When you get new teachers, how are you holding onto them long term?”
