A Harvard Medical School scientist working on a ground breaking cancer detection microscope has been detained by US immigration officers and faces possible deportation. Kseniia Petrova, 30, who is from Russia, was arrested at Boston Logan International Airport in mid-February and is being held at a correctional center in Monroe, Louisiana.

Petrova was returning from Paris and following a French lab professor’s request to bring back frog embryos to Harvard for a collaboration, her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, told Fox News. She did not know that she needed to claim them at customs, he said. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote on X that Petrova ‘was lawfully detained after lying to federal officers about carrying substances into the country'.

Authorities with K9s found vials of embryotic frog cells, undeclared petri dishes and containers with unidentified substances without proper permits, according to the DHS. ‘Messages found on her phone revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them,’ wrote the agency. ‘She knowingly broke the law and took deliberate steps to evade it.’ The bioinformatician at Harvard Medical School’s Kirschner Lab had her J-1 scholar visa canceled by US Customs and Border Protection, instead of just having her items seized and receiving a fine, Romanovsky said.

Petrova was seeking asylum after having been detained in her home country for participating in protests against the war on Ukraine. ‘She faces the threat of immediate arrest due to her prior political activism and outspoken opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,’ said Romanovsky. Petrova developed computer scripts to read images off the microscope designed to help with early cancer detection. NBC News reported that she is the only scientist who can fully extract the microscope’s potential, and that further advancements around it could be jeopardized.

https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/other/top-sc...73b1becf8&ei=52

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