ASTONISHING EXPERIMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 18808, 5 December 1924, Page 1

ASTONISHING EXPERIMENTS

CELLS GROWING- FOR TWELVE ; YEARS. I Bacteriologists have for many years been , able to keen most micro-organisms living indefinitely by means of suitable culture maienal. It is only recently, however , (writes ‘Stethoscope,’ in the Melbourne ‘Argus’), that successful attempts have been made to keep the cells of the body alive for any length of time under laboratory conditions. However, this has now been accomplished, and Dr Alexis Carrol, from the laboratories*j>f the Rockefeller i Institute for Medical Research, gave an interesting address to his British confreres at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association at Bradford this year. Dr Carrel’s name has been well known tor many years, more particularly in his work on antiseptics, and the solution bearing his name was greatly used by surgeons during tho war. Though he ■ has been working at this subject since pre-war days, be has ! only attempted to work out tho fundamental processes which occur under ordinary conditions, and has wisely left all considerations of pathological conditions affecting growth until later. His successful experiments were carried out in the developing chicken, as experimenters generally find this tho most convenient material to work on. Lggs are incubated in an incubator, and their development can be studied at any particular stage as required. He took cells from various tissues and managed to keep pure “cultures” of them constantly growing, and has now a strain of fibrous tissue colls that have been growing and multiplying for the last twelve years. These cells originally commenced from a fragment of tho”heart of a chick embryo. These fibrous tissue colls, or fibroblasts, he_ found tno easiest to cultivate, and, in fact, found that on Lying to grow other tissues, if there were any fibroblasts present, they outorew the other cells, crowding them out? and finally only fibroblasts could be seen. However, by getting pieces of tissue free from fibroblasts, Dr Carrel has managed to get most of tho body tissues to j grow in tho laboratory. I " Many oilier experimenters have been I engaged in similar work, and the process 1 of cell growth and division may now bo shown under the microscope, and the observer can watch a single cell grow, go through the peculiar molecular changes connected with division, and become two cells the same as the original, and so on indcfinitelv. I CANCER PROBLEM. I It is impossible to foresee the results t]iesc various experiments will have ou medicine and surgery, but they will bo I far-rcaeliing. and the next decade or two I will prove their general usefulness. The . disease which they may possibly help j to j solve is, of course, cancer, as the unrig- : mint rr cancer ” cells are just such embryonic tissue cells growing and multiplying in an adult body. Already there is aI , hint of a probable means of attacking can- ■ cer, which is by means of the blood J str -in’i. Experiments have now proved that the plasma, or fluid part of the blood, 1 w’thoul tho blood corpuscles, does not sup- ; ply all that, is necessary for the growth of ’ such embryonic cells. The reverse is tho 1 case, for blood serum actually acts as an ' ■ inhibitor to growth and multiplication, I 1 unless it has been nctiva-W by means of substances mainly derived from white , 1 blood corpuscles. j > Hence in cancer eases the blood serum is not inbihitorv to embryonic cll "rowth, n as it normally should be, and the natural r question is to'fi-d out wha* has chan -ed it. f The so'utiou i f this nuostion will go a < long way towards c o!viir r the cancer iiroh- 1 ’em,' hut. it riiows that the authorities who f nut chronic poisonings and chronic bifec- s {ions ns the main causes of cancer were i up the track. In a’l chronic infections I -tc.. there is a constant and mme-aged [ leucocyte, or white blood cull, destruction, v and this destruction may he tho means of j; ■.ofihu- free fl, o s.upr-ial eh-ment "ho the $ blood stream w-hHi causes tho blood serum I to lose its normal inhibitory effect agmti.st o malignant or eiiibrvmrr tissue growth. t