Christchurch Chemist To Study New Cancer Control Compounds

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27733, 10 August 1955, Page 16

Christchurch Chemist To Study New Cancer Control Compounds

New purine analogues have shown j promising possibilities in the control of cancer, and in their preparation more information is required on the | chemical behaviour of substances i known as, tetrazoles, compounds with ; a high content of nitrogen. Mr J. ■ Vaughan, senior lecturer in chemistp' ■ at Canterbury University College, will be associated. with this research when he goes to the United States at the ■ end of this month to work for a year at the 'University of Michigan with Professor P. A. S. Smith, who visited New Zealand in 1951 as a Fulbright professor. A United States. Public Health Service grant has been awarded by the American Cancer Institute to finance this invest!cation. Mr Vaughan has received" a Fulbright travel grant from the United States Educational Foundation in New Zealand for the trip to America. The Carnegie Corporation of New York also, has awarded Mr Vaughan a grant to visit other American universities for six weeks afterwards. They will include Harvard, Wayne (Detroit)', Purdue (Indiana). Chicago. California (Los Angeles), and Stanford (San Francisco). Mr Vaughan will then spend some months in Britain, visiting university centres which specialise in hi- own field of organic chemistry. He graduated from the University of South Wales. Cardiff, as a bachelor of science with first-class honours in chemistry. After the Second World War, which interrupted his studies, he took the master of science degree of the University of Wales. He had already been elected an associate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Volunteering for active service on the outbreak of war. Mr Vaughan was seconded as an experimental officer in the armament research department of the Ministry of Supply. He made notable contributions to knowledge of the thermal decomposition of certain explosives. He worked for a time at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. In T 946. Mr Vaughan became a re-

search chemist in The Crookes Laboratories. London, and two years later, he was appointed lecturer in chemistry at University College, Swansea. He was appointed lecturer in organic chemistry at Canterbury College in |

1949. and was promoted to senior lecturer two years later.

When the American Chemical Society celebrated its diamond jubilee in 1951, it sponsored a “Younger Chemists’ International Project” under which 200 representatives from 48 countries were invited to attend, with assistance from the Ford Foundation. Mr Vaughan was chosen as one of the three delegates from New Zealand. Since he arrived in Christchurch. Mr Vaughan has been engaged with Professor J. Packer on research into the mechanisms of organic reactions, and a number of their papers have been published.