Them Wacky Tobacky boys are at it again

From the Louisville Courier-Journal (boy I sure would like to link to the local story in Messenger-Inquirer but their sites requires a subscription)

HIV inhibitor grown in tobacco plants

But yesterday, Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center announced that one of its scientists had used Kentucky tobacco plants to cheaply grow a potent, protein-based drug that inhibits HIV.

If clinical studies prove successful, the product, likely a preventive gel, could be on shelves around the world as early as 2015, providing a crucial method of reducing new HIV infections in places such as sub-Saharan Africa, according to Kenneth Palmer, who conducted the study.

"There's a big need for an effective, female-controlled intervention to protect from HIV," said Palmer, a senior University of Louisville scientist.

This is by far the biggest results to come from the Owensboro Cancer Research Program. The research behind this story was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (article here) and the research has picked up a good amount of attention from the science community and has been commented on in Nature (article here). For those of you not playing along at home the Proceedings of the National Academy and Nature are two of the top five journals to publish research in. This is the type of attention that top-notch research from the big institutions get and the little ole' labs up at the hospital are doing it. Maybe there is something to this plant-made pharmaceutical stuff.

Bonus points go to the authors for making the research open access, meaning you don't need a subscription to see the article.

Now that's Owensboro

After putting together tomorrow's post, I kind of came across a neat little epiphany.

Here's the backstory:

With the recent news that Owensboro can't come up with a new "Brand", I've been trying to help them out with a few suggestions.

1) Visit Owensboro, Future Ghost Town!
2) Owensboro! You Can't Get Here from There


Now here's one that dag-nabbit, actually makes a little sense:
(once again, feel free to use at no cost to the taxpayer)

Bluegrass, Burgoo, and Biotech - Now that's Owensboro!

We all know that the true home of Bluegrass is the 'boro. It's also the only place to get real Burgoo. And hey, we want to be a biotech hub so there you have it. We don't need no big-city marketers to tell us who we are.

Update - why this is on my brain at midnight I don't know but I came up with a whole slew of ideas on the theme of "Now that's Owensboro!"

So
1) Great schools, Great living, Great times - Now that's Owensboro!
I've lost the alliteration on the following but they work
How about tailoring it for some Nascar notables
2) Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Green, Jeremy Mayfield - Now that's Owensboro!
Maybe a little local flair
3) "It's Hot Don!" - Now that's Owensboro
An economic push - a little gangly but it may work
4) Emerging Ventures, Life Science Partnership, Greater Owensboro Venture Club - Now that's Owensboro!
A barbecue flair
5) Moonlite, Old Hickory, Bar-B-Que Festival - Now that's Owensboro!
Local trivia
6) World's Largest Sassafras Tree - Now that's Owensboro!

Of course the curmudgeon's take
7) Empty hotels, low-paying jobs, aging population - Now that's Owensboro!

I think you can get where I'm going with this. Ideas, comments, concerns or complaints are all welcome in the peanut gallery (comments section)