Tuesday
December 3, 2002
Vol. 113. Issue No. 69
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Despite Grizzlies' dismal record, Gooden excels in NBA p.1B
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Student helps catch criminals in robbery
By Michelle Burhenn mburhenn@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Punching through a car window and hitting the driver in the face had fruitful results for Jake Marston. It led not only to an arrest and the recovery of his property, but to the recovery of other stolen property as well.
Marston, Hesston junior, was eating with a few friends Saturday at Old Chicago, 2329 Iowa St. After he paid the tab, he left the restaurant about 10:50 p.m.
"I knew it was my speaker box right away, so I went into a dead sprint," he said.
"I was about 10 feet out the door when I noticed my hatch of my Ford Explorer was open." Marston said.
He said he saw two men carrying his large speaker box into a blue Saab.
One of the men slammed his car door shut and locked it, he said. Reacting instantly, Marston punched through the driver's side window of the Saab and punched the driver a few times.
"I don't know what was going through my mind," he said, "Nothing for safety—what if he had had a gun? What if he had had a knife? None of that was going through my head. I just wanted my stereo back."
The two men then pealed out of the parking lot, flinging Marston away from their car. But he was able to get a description of the two men and their car. Police arrived a few minutes later, he said.
Lawrence police Lt. David Cobb said police officers noticed a blue Saab in the 1400 block of Kasold Drive that matched Marston's description. When police pulled over the car, they searched the vehicle and found Marston's 12-inch subwoofer, 500-watt amplifier and 250-watt amplifier. Police also found a Pioneer car stereo that a 22-year-old KU student had reported stolen from his car in the Southwinds Theater parking lot between 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. that night.
Police arrested Kevin Allen Chamberlain, 22, and Ralph Joey Beilman, 23, both of Topeka. Beilman was charged in Douglas County District Court yesterday with automobile burglary, theft and criminal damage to property. Chamberlain will be charged later this week, said Brad Burke, Douglas County assistant district attorney.
district attorney. Marston's stolen items, valued at $750 were returned to him later that night.
"It was definitely worth it," he said of his injured hand. "I was very lucky that I wasn't hurt more and I got my stereo back."
— Edited by Melissa Shuman
Battling the beast:
KU Med research team creates HIV vaccine that FDA may approve for human testing
STORY BY LINDSAY HANSON. PICTURES BY JOHN NOWAK
No one has conquered HIV yet, but a team of researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center is working to move a step closer this spring.
Bill Narayan, chairman of microbiology, molecular genetics and immunology at the Med Center, guides a team of researchers studying a precursor to an HIV vaccine being used on monkeys. Narayan has been working for more than 20 years to conquer what he calls the "beast," HIV, with a preventive vaccine. He's not there yet, but he says he's close.
The attempt to create a vaccine at the Med Center has failed more than once. But Narayan said he expected the FDA to elevate the current project to a level few of its peers have achieved: human clinical trials.
The team's work shines among a small peer group, said Dale Lawrence, a representative of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Institute, also called NIAID, is a facet of the National Institutes of Health, the project's funding source. Since NIAID funded the first clinical HIV vaccine trial in 1988, only 26 vaccine candidates have produced 49 sets of clinical trials
Lawrence, the chief medical officer for the HIV vaccine clinical research branch of NIAID, said Narayan was leading a group with unique research methods.
"My impression, just generally speaking, is that his research is very avant-garde," he said.
The project's sponsors see its potential. Since Narayan first arrived at KU in 1993, vaccine projects at the Med Center have collected and spent $29 million from NIAID.
Backed by a team of 16 researchers which includes faculty, post-doctoral fellows and lab technicians-Narayan and others are slowly prying open the
door to the end of the AIDS pandemic that has gripped the world for two decades. The AIDS pandemic came to light in 1981 when a Kaposi's Sarcoma cancer trend emerged in gay men and baffled medical experts.
The research
Investigators are watching its performance in 71 rhesus macaque monkeys—each with a $5,000 price tag. The group needs to test the vaccine in the monkeys to confirm its effectiveness, said Shilpa Buch, assistant research professor in microbiology, molecular genetics and immunology at the Med Center.
The Med Center team has concocted a vaccine that uses the DNA of the virus to teach the body's immune system to recognize and ward off future onslaughts.
"You need an animal model, and that's the closest to humans," she said.
Rhesus macaques are an ideal species because the virus destroys their immune systems more quickly than it does in other animals. Buch said that allowed the team to test more vaccine models more frequently.
HIV takes 14,000 new victims each day, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Today, 40 million people around the world are living with HIV, according to NIAID statistics, and 22 million HIV-infected people have died since 1981.
But HIV corrodes the immune system at a slow pace that doesn't fit the researchers' harried time frame, Narayan said. In 70 percent of untreated HIV patients,the virus hibernates for 10 years before progressing to full-blown AIDS.
So his team is pioneering a technique to speed the virus's process of destruction. Med Center researchers have fused the human immunodeficiency
virus, HIV, with the primate version, the simian immunodeficiency virus, SIV, to form a virus so pathogenic that it withers the monkeys' immune system to full-blown AIDS in two weeks. Narayan said.
Student surviving struggle with leukemia
By George Schulz
gschulz@kansan.com
kansan staff writer
Megha Vaidya never imagined that a trip to Watkins Health Center with symptoms of nausea and exhaustion would quickly snowball into a nasty bout with leukemia at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.
She was then sent to St Luke's, where on Nov. 8 she was diagnosed with acute leukemia — a type of quickly developing cancer which starts in the bone marrow and travels into the blood. It can be fatal in just a few months if not treated.
Watkins first sent Vaidya, a graduate student from Hyderabad, India, to St. Joseph's Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. for tests that would show her symptoms.
Doctors determined her condition was too poor for her to travel back to India for treatment. Instead she is undergoing chemotherapy at St. Luke's.
"A fundraiser wouldn't have been possible in India," said Arun Agarwal, a grad
Remaining in the United States has provided a few advantages for her.
uate student from Bombay, India, and organizer of a fundraiser to help pay for Vaidye's medical expenses. "I don't think there would have been enough avenues."
Agarwal, along with other members of the KU Cultural India Club, have raised more than $40,000 from student groups at other universities and institutions around the country. But the group needs almost $160,000 more to reach its goal of the estimated $200,000 for Valdya's treatment.
"We are looking at a huge amount of money," Agarwal said. "We're trying to get in touch with people and let them
know the gravity of the situation."
Vaidya's chief oncologist at St. Luke's, Sunil Abhyankar, said her treatment was moving along well and her white blood cell count was beginning to rise. Chemotherapy treatment is designed to kill leukemia cells, but the treatment also damages blood cells, which fortify the immune system and help protect against infection. Vaidya is most susceptible to infection during the two- to three-week recovery period that has followed her seven-day treatment.
SEE LEUKEMIA PAGE 6A
This bare entertainment center was home to a flat screen television, DVD player and a tape deck. Erin Clay, Prairie Village junior, said the stolen items were worth thousands of dollars.
Jared Soares/Kansan
Thanksgiving break burglaries concern Regents Court residents
By Michelle Burhnn
mburhann@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A Thanksgiving-weekend burglary at a Lawrence apartment complex affected 23 KU students and caused some to be concerned about their safety.
Items ranging from computers and a flat screen television to tampons and macaroni and cheese were stolen from nine of the 15 apartments in an apartment building at Regents Court apartments, 1903 Massachusetts St. The burglar entered most of the apartments through a window.
A groundskeeper observed two men taking a computer from an apartment to a car around 9 a.m. Friday morning, said Lawrence police Lt. David Cobb. The groundskeeper told police that the men didn't appear to be nervous and "walked like they owned the place."
Erin Clay, Prairie Village junior, said her stolen items were worth thousands of dollars. Her flat screen television, a birthday present from her parents, was
stolen.
She said yesterday that she would meet with her two roommates about what to do.
"I don't really want to live here anymore," Clay said. "I went away for three days and all my stuff was taken."
Aimee Shrimplin, Hiawatha junior, said she wasn't ready to pack her bags vet.
"We're concerned about our safety, but I don't think we'll move;" she said.
SEE BURGARIES PAGE 6A
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