RA Prof Slays 3 When Tenure Denied

[Albert Hidel]

University of Alabama in Huntsville biology professor in custody regarding deadly shooting at faculty meeting

By Patricia C. McCarter
February 12, 2010, 5:45PM


Shooting suspect Amy Bishop is taken into custody. She has not been charged with a crime.

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- A biology professor is in custody in connection with three fatal shootings on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus Friday afternoon, according to a UAH official.

Dr. Amy Bishop, a [regionally accredited] Harvard-University trained neuroscientist, was taken into custody, and her husband has been detained. They have not been charged with a crime.

According to police, three people were killed and three were wounded when the shooter opened fire during a biology faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology. The three injured people are being treated at Huntsville Hospital.

In June 2006, The Times published a story involving Bishop, biology professor and her husband, Jim Anderson, chief science officer of Cherokee Labsystems in Huntsville.

Bishop is quoted in the story as co-inventor of "InQ," a new cell growth incubator which promised to cut the costs, size and maintenance involved in the mechanics of cell generation.

From the story: InQ co-inventor Amy Bishop credits the coming together of a group of people with certain skills and crossover knowledge in a series of highly fortunate events fueled by Huntsville's evolving entrepreneurial spirit.

"It's great to actually see it hit the market, and the sooner the better," Bishop said. "My colleagues think it will change the face of tissue culture. It will allow us, as researchers, to not live in the lab and control our tissue culture conditions, including the sensitive cultures including those like adult stem cells.

"The conditions to differentiate those have to be exact, and the incubator will help that."

Tired of applying 1920s science to the rapidly advancing work of biotechnology, Bishop approached her husband ... about inventing a portable cell incubator. Together, she and Anderson designed a sealed, self-contained cell incubation system that is mobile and eliminates many of the problems with cultivating tissues in the fragile environment of the petri dish.

It also has its own on-board computer that maintains and regulates the incubator, allowing tighter control of the cell environment.