A federal judge in Vermont on Wednesday released a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher from immigration custody as she deals with a criminal charge of smuggling frog embryos into the United States.
Colleagues and academics also testified on Kseniia Petrova’s behalf, saying she is doing valuable research to advance cures for cancer.
“It is excellent science,” Michael West, a scientist and entrepreneur in the biotech industry, testified on Petrova’s research papers. He said he does not know Petrova, but has become acquainted with her published work, citing one in which she explains that “by mapping embryonic development, novel ways of intervening in the biology of regeneration and aging.”
West said that Petrova’s medical research skills are highly sought after and that he himself would hire her “in a heartbeat.”
Petrova, 30, is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service in Louisiana. She is expected to be brought to Massachusetts as early as Friday in preparation for a bail hearing next week on the smuggling charge, lawyers said in court.
