(Radio Iowa) – A group of Iowa State University researchers has made a discovery that could lead to a new treatment for patients with blood disorders like leukemia. Clyde Campbell, a professor of genetics, development and cell biology at Iowa State, is on the research team. “I think we are definitely on the verge of making a huge advancement in the use of cell transplants to help cure blood cancers,” Campbell said during a Radio Iowa interview.

Blood cancers account for about 10% of all diagnosed cancers in adults each year and about 25% of all cancers in children. Treatment is often a transplant of bone marrow from a live donor, to respond to the way cancer disrupts the body’s production of blood stem cells. Campbell is the ISU researcher who first observed the switch inside a zebrafish stem cell that triggered production of blood stem cells. “There are very few moments in a scientist’s life where you see something that just kind of blows you away,” Campbell said.

Iowa State University researchers Raquel Espin Palazon (center), Karin Dorman and Clyde Campbell in ISU’s Advanced Teaching and Research Building. (Photo by Christopher Gannon/Iowa State University)

What Campbell saw through his microscope was a 100-fold increase in the number of blood stem cells produced after a certain protein was added. “It really almost knocked me out of my seat,” Campbell said, “because what we were able to produce has never been observed.”

Campbell explains scientists were already able to take non-vital cells from a patient’s skin, add a mixture of key components in a laboratory dish and produce stem cells. “Now where we’re at is trying to drive those cells to become specifically blood stem cells,” Campbell told Radio Iowa. “That way we’d have the ability to introduce the patient’s own cells into their body.”

That would eliminate the need for a bone marrow transplant, as well as the powerful prescription drugs patients have to take long after the transplant. The I-S-U research has been published in Nature Communications, a scientific journal.

It will “definitely take some time” to develop and ensure the process of producing blood stem cells in a lab and putting them back in the patient’s body is safe, according to Campbell. Campbell and others on the ISU research team are working with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to do more testing on the production of blood stem cells in a lab. Part of a $2 million federal grant is being used to build a new lab on the Ames campus to continue the research team’s work.

(Radio Iowa) – The drought has eased across much of the Midwest, but dry conditions persist in the upper Missouri River basin, prompting the U-S Army Corps of Engineers to keep releases from Gavins Point Dam at the minimum rate. John Remus, chief of the Corp’s Missouri River Basin Water Management Division, says there is a big difference between conditions in the upper and lower basins.  “Primarily Nebraska, parts of Kansas, and here in Missouri, they’ve kind of come out of drought,” Remus says. “The upper basin, however, we thought we were going to have some improvements, but just kind of went back into drought.”

After four years of drought, heavy rains brought Iowa completely out of the drought this spring, but abnormally dry conditions are returning, and now cover about two-thirds of the state. Remus says the long-range forecast doesn’t provide much hope for improvement. “Based on the soil conditions and the long-term outlook from NOAA, I think we’re probably going to have another dry spring, unless we get a lot of snow in the mountains and a lot of snow in the plains, but they’re not calling for that,” Remus says. “So I think we’re going to be in a very similar situation to begin 2025 as we were this year in 2024.” Remus says he understands the continued minimum water releases puts pressure on cities, businesses, and utilities that rely on the Missouri River.

Gavins Point Dam (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo)

“Right now, we’re looking at a winter release of 12,000 cubic feet per second out of Gavin’s Point, which is very similar to what we had in the winter of 2022-23,” he says. “There are going to be some municipal intakes in the lower river here that are going to be right at the margin of having some issues with getting water in.”

The Corps of Engineers reports 73-percent of the Missouri River Basin is experiencing dry or drought conditions.

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department report a Clarke County man was arrested Wednesday evening at the Creston/Union County Law Enforcement Center. 29-year-old Dennis Michael Simmerman, of Murry, was charged with Sexual Abuse/3rd Degree. He was brought to the Union County Jail and held without bond until seen by a Judge.

IOWA CITY, Iowa [KCRG-TV] —  The former University of Iowa Machine Shop manager accused of stealing nearly $950,000 from the university was arrested on Thursday. State Auditor Rob Sand released a report Sept. 4 detailing his investigation into Brian Busch’s activities as Machine Shop manager for the university’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. The investigation found Busch deposited nearly $1 million into his personal accounts that should have gone to the university’s account.

It also found Busch failed to tell the university about his ownership of D3Signtech (D3T), in compliance with university of policy. University officials were also made aware Busch may have used university assets and staff to divert revenue from the school to his business. The university says Busch was placed on administrative leave in 2021 but was not fired until last week when Sand’s investigation was finished. They say they’re looking at ways to recoup what they paid Busch and two other employees while on leave.

Busch was arrested on Thursday. He faces charges of first-degree theft, tampering with records, ongoing criminal activity and first-degree fraud.

(Radio Iowa) – The deadline passed Thursday afternoon and no one claimed a half-million dollar Powerball prize from a ticket sold at a northern Iowa convenience store. The 500-thousand dollar ticket was purchased at a Kwik Star in Mason City six months ago and it needed to be claimed at Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive by 4 P-M Thursday. Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer explains what will happen to the money.

“If a prize expires without being claimed, the money goes into the lottery’s prize pools for future games and promotions,” Neubauer says, “so it will go to pay prizes, just not those prizes that have expired.”

(Iowa Lottery photo)

The prize was not in a regular Powerball drawing but in the Powerball Double Play drawing on March 16th. The winning ticket was part of the Double Play option that was added to the Powerball game in Iowa back in November, which is a second drawing that takes place after the first drawing.

MOUNT VERNON, Iowa (KCRG) – One person suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a small plane crashed in Linn County on Thursday. The Linn County Sheriff’s Office said the single-engine plane crashed in a farm field south of Highway 30 and east of Cedar River Road. The pilot – 65-year-old Mark Anton- was the only person onboard the plane. He was taken to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

There was no damage to anything other than the plane. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

(Radio Iowa) – A park south of Forrest City that is the second highest point in Iowa will mark its 100th anniversary Saturday. Pilot Knob State Park Manager Katie Hemann says people in two counties got things moving to preserve the area. “Kind of started in the 1920s with Winnebago and Hancock County residents seeing a piece of land and wanting to preserve it. So the process of it becoming a state park started in 1920 and then it became a dedicated State Park in 1924,” she says. A depression-era program led to the building of a feature at the park that has become its signature.

“Probably the most distinct feature in Pilot Knob is our observation tower that was built in 1934,” Hemann says, “so it will be 90 years old this year, which is really neat. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps out of glacial rubble.” She says they put in a lot of work cutting those large rocks to build the structure, which is on the National Register of Historic Place. There’s also a lake, an amphitheater, and picnic shelter.

Pilot Knob State Park observation tower. (DNR photo)

Hemann says another unique feature of Pilot Knob is they have 90 camping spaces that are open year round. “We do have quite a few winter campers. A lot of them are hunters, but we do have some people that just enjoy camping in the winter, the peace and tranquility of fresh snowfall,” she says.

There are several events planned for the celebration, which is open to the public. “We ask that people use the main entrance in order to be able to manage all of the vehicle traffic coming in and making sure everybody has a place to park to the best of our abilities.

The celebration will start at 10am down by our warming house, which is right next to Pilot Knob Lake,” Hemann says. The volunteer group Friends of Pilot Knob State Park is hosting the celebration.