RESEARCH INTO CANCER

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24741, 5 December 1945, Page 8

RESEARCH INTO CANCER

SCIENTISTS REPORT PROGRESS

RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES AVAILABLE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) . NEW YORK, December 3. Professor E. O. Lawrence, Professor of Physics at the University of California, and director of its radiation laboratory, told the science writer of the Associated Press that scientists were about to point a way toward the cure of certain kinds of cancer. “But that does not mean that we are able to cure all forms of malignancy,” he said. “We hope, in a few years, that we can show a significant percentage of success in the treatment of some varieties.

“The cyclotron, which produced the first plutonium for atomic bomb research. is at present more powerful because it has been rebuilt, and its efforts have been reinforced by other cyclotrons. American medical research workers will now have much larger radioactive substances for their work on cancer and other diseases. It also means that the number of research workers will be greatly increased and that eventually they will be able to exert a mass effort, which may speed ultimate results in medicine as did the combined efforts of scientists hasten the achievement of stomic explosives.” Professor Lawrence said that scientists will have immediately at their disposal a long life radioactive carbon, a comparatively new substance, the medical potentialities of which are yet unknown, but which is certain to play an important part in research. Professor Lawrence is well known for his research into the structure of atoms, the atomic nucleus, the transmutation of atoms, and the application of physics to biology and medicine. Dr, J. G. Hamilton, an assistant professor of medicine and radiology, said that since carbon was a key element in all living matter, research workers will now be able to apply its radioactive form to all parts of the body, including it in diet or injections Whether it has disease fighting powers remains to be seen.