IMMORTAL TISSUES

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 April 1933, Page 4

IMMORTAL TISSUES

GROWTH OF THE CELLS It is announced fiom New York that the fragment of a chicken’s heart, kept alive in a test-tube at the Rockefeller Institute, has just celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday, states a recent London “Observer.” It seems, therefore, an appropiate moment to review the subject, for an eminent authority has described this artificial cultivation of cells of the body under artificial conditions as the most important new biological method discovered during the century. The point to be grasped is that death of the body as a whole is not followed immediately by death of the individual cells. The organs are no longer co-ordinated in their activities owing essentially to failure of the nervous system, but the cells live on, and if suitable precautions are taken to prevent contamination by infective organisms, cells can be found still alive up to fourteen days after an animal has “died.” Fibrous cells from a chicken’s heart, obtained from an egg long before the chicken was ready to hatch, have proved best, and, as Carrel has shown in America, such cells are almost immortal. The pithelial cells (which cover the surfaces of the body, exterior and interior) also grow fairly well, so do cartilage cells (“gristle”), and certain tumour cells from cancerous growths have also been cultivated. A supporting framework of fine blood clot is necessary, and a special fluid containing animal products, inorganic salts, and sometimes glucose. Cells can be grown on very thin slips of glass on a. microscope slide or, as in the case of the Rockefeller culture, in special glass vessels. It should be noted that a single cell will not. grow satisfactorily; a collection or colony is required, and if one cell is separated it will shrivel up and show no further signs of life. The factors which cause growth have been studied in this way, and there appear to be certain essential substances called “trephones” which arc found in young and immature t issue.

' These trephones cannot as yet. be isolated or identified on account of Iht.-ir great chemical instability, and ' so far all attempts at chemical syn- . t.liesisation have failed. 'The observation of the changes taki lug place in these cells is a tedious business, and 10 get over this the cinematograph has been brought into use. It has been possible to lake pictures of these cells through a. microscope at varying ini crvals. usually about every three to sixty seconds, and the reselling film is then projected either at the usual rate of sixteen pictures per second, or with modified speedingup Io give anything up to a thousand limes the. rate actually presold in the developing colls. In this way changes in the cells have been carefully observed, and the effects of radial ion from X-rays of radium have also been accurately studied. Th.c Lises of ’issue culture are immeiotis. but it is, perhaps, true to say that the potentialities of the method have not so far been fully tested. The exact study of the. chemical changes occurring in the living cell can be carried out, the effect of various surroundings upon survival can be. tested, the influence of the acidity or alkalinity of the. fluid “food” upon cell growth can be estimated, and lhe processes of disease studied whereby the : cell is “educated” to deal with various noxious substances. I For research into cancer the method . also opens up great possibilities. Alongside all this scientific applica- ,

lion of the subject remains the marvel that, in New York portions of a < bicken's heart are still living long after the, bird of which they should formed part would have been dead.