Recovery of Damages for Injuries Sustained by Children en Ventre sa Mere

The principal legal question dealt with here is whether there is a cause of action for the wrongful death of a child which while en ventre sa mere is injured and subsequently is born dead as the result of negligence of a third party. This question is closely related to the questions of: (1) whether there is a cause of action for the wrongful death of a child which while en ventre sa mere is injured as the result of negligence of a third party, subsequently is born alive and then dies as a result of such injuries; and (2) whether a child may maintain a cause of action for damages for personal injuries sustained as the result of negligence of a third party while it was en ventre sa mere. There is no precedent in West Virginia which is directly in point respecting any of the three questions. As will be demonstrated hereinafter, the marked trend of authority is toward permitting recovery of damages in all of the three situations

Tomato protoplast DNA transformation: physical linkage and recombination of exogenous DNA sequences

Tomato protoplasts have been transformed with plasmid DNA's, containing a chimeric kanamycin resistance gene and putative tomato origins of replication. A calcium phosphate-DNA mediated transformation procedure was employed in combination with either polyethylene glycol or polyvinyl alcohol. There were no indications that the tomato DNA inserts conferred autonomous replication on the plasmids. Instead, Southern blot hybridization analysis of seven kanamycin resistant calli revealed the presence of at least one kanamycin resistance locus per transformant integrated in the tomato nuclear DNA. Generally one to three truncated plasmid copies were found integrated into the tomato nuclear DNA, often physically linked to each other. For one transformant we have been able to use the bacterial ampicillin resistance marker of the vector plasmid pUC9 to 'rescue' a recombinant plasmid from the tomato genome. Analysis of the foreign sequences included in the rescued plasmid showed that integration had occurred in a non-repetitive DNA region. Calf-thymus DNA, used as a carrier in transformation procedure, was found to be covalently linked to plasmid DNA sequences in the genomic DNA of one transformant. A model is presented describing the fate of exogenously added DNA during the transformation of a plant cell. The results are discussed in reference to the possibility of isolating DNA sequences responsible for autonomous replication in tomato.