Birdie Lewis talks to press after a judge denies bail to Rene Valentin-Matos who was linked to 2009 murder of Lewis' daughter by DNA evidence. After waiting for justice for nearly five years , Jahmeshia Conners mother came to court Thursday to see with her own eyes the man accused of violently ending the fifth-graders life. Rene Valentin-Matos had been extradited from a small town in Minnesota and was making his initial appearance in a Cook County courtroom on charges he raped and strangled the 12-year-old in 2009 and sexually assaulted a 26-year-old woman in 2011, both in Chicago. Jahmeshias mother, Birdie Lewis, said she never lost hope that her daughters killer would be unmasked. I knew I was going to get me some justice somehow, some way, she told reporters at the Leighton Criminal Court Building after Valentin-Matos had been ordered held without bail. I kept it in Gods hands, and He finally gave me some justice before Mothers Day. The best Mothers Day I could ever have. Prosecutors revealed in court that DNA recovered from beneath Jahmeshias fingernails was linked to Valentin-Matos, a transient worker who at the time of the murder lived at the church where the … Continue reading →

Researchers for the first time created microbes containing artificial DNA, expanding the universal genetic code that guides life. The advance one day could lead to new antibiotics, vaccines and other medical products not possible with today's bioscience. In a report published Wednesday in Nature, the scientists said they created two additions to the normal genetic code, and then prompted bacteria to incorporate these pieces of man-made DNA with few ill effects. "The cells recognized it as natural," said chemical biologist Floyd Romesberg at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who led the research group. The experiment demonstrates the feasibility of life-forms based on a different DNA code, independent experts said. Eventually, scientists could use an expanded genetic code to design living cells that could make new medical compounds. By one recent estimate, the market for biologic and protein-based therapies is expected to reach $165 billion a year by 2018. "Most people thought this wasn't possible," said biochemist Steven Benner at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Fla., who wasn't involved in the project. Many scientists assumed that a normal cell would ignore any imitation DNA. "He has gone inside a cell and gotten it to work … Continue reading →