HORMONES:
A Page in Human Growth Another page has been turned in the fascinating story of the human growth hormone. Recent studies suggest that a segment of this protein molecule may be responsible for lactogenic activity. A different segment of the chain might have a direct bearing on HGH's growth-promoting function. Dr. Choh Hao Li, who first isolated HGH in 1956 and revealed its structure 10 years later, believes his new finding could be a significant advance in the field of molecular endocrinology. With ebullient enthusiasm, the director of the hormone research laboratory at the University of California medical center in San Francisco explains that mapping the sites of HGH's dual physiological activity, if such sites exist, might open the way to clinical treatment with those portions of the molecule that cause separate responses in an organism. For instance, the lactogenic fragment could bring about development of the breasts and stimulate milk secretion without inducing the other physiological effects of growth hormone. Alternatively, if another segment of HGH promotes growth, it might be used to correct dwarfism, while safeguarding the normal physiology of the mammary glands. HGH, along with 11 other hormones, is produced and secreted by the pituitary gland, a tiny body located at the base of the brain. The protein is essential for an individual's normal growth as well as for development and lactation of the mammary glands in humans. Lower orders of mammals have individual hormones that control these diverse functions. Whereas HGH is active in mammals other than man, the reverse isn't always the case. Man doesn't respond to ovine (sheep) C&EX:
Dermot O'Sullivan
Choh Hao Li A fascinating story of human growth 12 C&EN DEC. 1, 1969
growth hormone or ovine lactogenic hormone, for instance. Dr. Li's new information stems from completion of amino acid sequencing studies on ovine lactogenic hormone, or prolactin. Using standard isolating and sequencing techniques, he and coworkers, Dr. Jonathan S. Dixon, Dr. Tung-Bin Lo, Dr. Yuri A. Pankov, and Dr. Knud D. Schmidt, have elucidated its stmcture [Nature, 224, 695 (1969)]. Ovine prolactin contains 198 amino acid residues. (In contrast, the HGH molecule has 188 amino acid residues.) The portion of the ovine prolactin molecule that most intrigues Dr. Li extends from residue 156 to the end of the chain. Its amino acid makeup, he finds, closely matches that of the ultimate 42 amino acid segment in the HGH molecule. "It's entirely possible that segment 146 to 188 of HGH is the site of its lactogenicity," Dr. Li says. Now his team is synthesizing this polypeptide fragment to study it for possible lactogenic activity.
ANTIBIOTICS:
Clampdown in U.K. The U.K. government is clamping down on the use of antibiotics for treating farm animals. Minister of Agriculture Cledwyn Hughes announced the restrictions immediately after release of a report from a special committee appointed more than a year ago to study the pros and cons of using antibiotics in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. Headed by Edinburgh University's Prof. Michael Swann, the committee's formation resulted from growing concern over infective drug resistance, a process whereby resistance to drugs developed by microorganisms through subtherapeutic dosing of animals may be transferred to other microorganisms, including those infecting man. The U.K. government has now accepted the report's main recommendations. One of these is that antibiotics used as therapeutic agents in farm animals—as distinct from those used in feeds to promote growth—should be available by prescription only from professional veterinary scientists. Tetracyclines, penicillins, sulfonamides, nitrofurans, and tylosin are named specifically as therapeutic drugs. Also, chloramphenicol should be retained by vets for special use only, Prof. Swann's group says. The drug is the only one currently available for combating typhoid in humans. Farmers should be allowed to continue using growth-promoting drugs without prescription up to the current maximum level of 100 p.p.m., the re-
THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
port says. But the drugs are rigidly defined by the report. Thus they must be economically valuable under U.K. farming conditions, and they must have little or no therapeutic value in humans. Also, the feed dings should not impair the power of therapeutic agents through development of resistant bacteria strains. However, the committee says feed antibiotics may be used in calves of up to three months old, as well as in growing pigs and poultry. But ingestion by laying poultry and adult breeding stock should be stopped. U.K. demand for antibiotics to treat animals grew from more than 132,000 kg. in 1964 to about 168,000 kg. in 1967, the latest year for which statistics are available.
LABOR:
Change for the 70's The chemical industry's relations with unionized labor in the 1970's will become more complex than in the past decade. The new breed of more demanding union members will become more effective in its use of power tactics. Courts may rule definitively on the legality, or illegality, of coalition bargaining. The Federal Government may set about the establishment of more comprehensive standards for occupational health and safety practices. And unions may continue to press for even higher wage increases and bigger and broader packages of fringe benefits. Such were some of the forecasts that industrial relations panelists offered at last week's semiannual meeting of the Manufacturing Chemists Association at the New York Hilton Hotel. Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union president A. F. Grospiron touched on the subject of collective bargaining. As we enter the 1970's, he said, many of the fundamental labor-management questions of past decades still remain unanswered. It may be that answers are forthcoming, he said, but there are only faint indications that this will be the case. The labor unions with which managers in the chemical and allied products industry have to deal are much too fragmented, Mr. Grospiron explains. The fragmentation has gone farther than just the division of chemical workers among three major chemical unions and numerous other related ones. There's the problem of fragmentation of bargaining within particular unions as chemical managements continue to insist on conduct-
neth S. Pitzer, president of Stanford University and himself a chemist of international renown, called on scientists to "help guide technology in the true service of mankind to avoid a damaging emotional reaction against science." Dr. Pitzer favors setting up a committee within the executive office of the President which would concern itself solely with environmental problems. One section of this committee would be devoted to efforts to forecast the effects of new technologies on the environment while other sections would deal with problems already recognized. "Scientists, engineers, lawyers, and humanists must express the need and be willing to back up such a program by their own commit-
Sen. Williams No change in union influence
ing plant-by-plant negotiations. Chemical managements will continue a long but retreating battle against coordinated bargaining, says the Denver-based union president. H e predicts that coordinated bargaining will become an accepted fact of chemical industrial relations during the 1970's. Sen. Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (D.-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Labor Subcommittee, indicated, however, that there's no evidence that the Nixon Administration will further intrude into the collective bargaining equation. No changes in existing laws have been proposed, he says. In response to a question about the future of union power, Sen. Williams said that he foresees the union's influence neither increasing nor decreasing. Olin vice president Francis A. O'Connell called coordinated bargaining an euphemism for coalition bargaining, which he regards as illegal. Although unions are not income making organizations, they nevertheless can aid in restraining trade and competition in domestic and foreign markets. For example, he says, the principle of work preservation—doing things the old way—serves no productive cause. Such a principle assaults our ideals about man's technological progress. Rohm and Haas vice president Robert J. Whitesell voiced concern that the rate of wage increases for chemical workers is excessive within the nation's economy. "There is no doubt that labor will cost much more in 1979 than it does today," he says. "But when the wage increases far outstrip gains in productivity, we're in
OCAW's Grospiron Questions remain unanswered
serious trouble. For the chemical industry, the whole world is the market . . . but there's increasing evidence that we are pricing ourselves out of the market."
THE ENVIRONMENT:
Deadly Brinkmanship "Today, 'environment' has become a fighting word," Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, science adviser to the President, told his audience in San Francisco last week. In the same vein, L. W. Lane, Jr., publisher of Sunset magazine, declared, "We are playing a deadly game of environmental brinkmanship." Dr. DuBridge and Mr. Lane were two of the distinguished speakers at the 13th national conference of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. Theme of the three-day affair: man and his environment. The meeting was a direct outgrowth of deepening concern in the UN over effects on the biosphere of the worsening environmental conditions around the world. This concern has prompted the UN to sponsor a conference on the subject slated for 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. What concrete corrective measures will emerge from this growing international awareness remains to be seen. As Mr. Lane puts it: "There is a grassroots awakening and lots of action going on, but, compared to the need to move fast, we are only crawling. If we are going to catch up, we will have to skip the walking stage in our evolution to environmental adulthood and start running as fast as we can." Noting that "certain intellectuals" charge that science is the cause of all our environmental problems, Dr. Ken-
Kenneth Pitzer Helping guide technology
ment, institutional and personal," Dr. Pitzer says. "I, for one, am willing to do so," he adds. "Any significant national goal must have the leadership of the President, agrees Sunset's Mr. Lane. "I predict that this country some day will have a Secretary of Environment, or some equivalent recognition within an existing division of an executive branch of our Federal Government." Referring to the need for effective educational programs in environmental science, Dr. Paul DeHart Hurd, professor of education at Stanford, holds out little hope of progress being made in overcoming man's environmental problems "unless we can reduce the polarity within the curriculum and establish interdisciplinary courses." He sees signs that this failing now is being recognized and corrected. For one thing, there's the publication of a new journal, "Environmental Education" that has as its theme research conservation and education. The first issue came out a few weeks ago. DEC. 1, 1969 C&EN
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