ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,290,541, issued on May 6, was assigned to SHAANXI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (Xi'an, China).

"Strain of Lactobacillus helveticus capable of removing multiple heavy metals and application thereof in goat milk powder" was invented by Guowei Shu (Xi'an, China), Ke Zhang (Xi'an, China), Huan Lei (Xi'an, China), Qisheng Hu (Xi'an, China), Guanli Du (Xi'an, China), Qiqi Zheng (Xi'an, China), Guoliang Li (Xi'an, China), Qinfeng Xu (Xi'an, China), Chunji Dai (Xi'an, China), Ting Li (Xi'an, China), Wenjing Hu (Xi'an, China), Lihao Xu (Xi'an, China), Chaowei Yang (Xi'an, China) and Jie Qiao (Xi'an, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Di...