Chemical world This week
The Top Stones FDA has approved for use in the U.S. an oral antibiotic that has had dramatic results in treating tuberculosis 6
Recycling plastic scrap for re-use is already a profitable business in Europe and is being studied in the U.S. 7
A new computer-assisted system for searching chemical literature abstracted in Chemical Abstracts will soon be available 8
Man-made fiber producers look to a better year in 1971 after a slump last year 13
Muskie hearing witnesses warn that too stringent pollution control standards could result in closing not only plants but entire industries 22
Presbyterian assembly ponders interplay of science and society and morality of technology 24
To lure the Loch Ness monster, IFF develops pheromones as aid to photographic and sonar methods 25
Elmer Gaden, subject of the 13th article in C&EN's series The Chemical Innovators, is regarded as the father of biochemical engineering 27
May 31, 1971
NEW HEPATITIS FINDINGS The rising incidence of serum hepatitis associated with drug addiction has placed new pressures on scientists investigating the disease. Hepatitis associated antigen (HAA), also known as Australia antigen, has been widely studied since it was discovered in the blood of serum hepatitis patients four years ago, but little attention has been given to the antibody formed in response to HAA. Last week two teams of scientists at the National Institutes of Health revealed research on both the nature of HAA and its antibody, anti-HAA. One group, headed by Dr. John L. Gerin, of the Molecular Anatomy Program (a joint program of the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), has determined that highly purified HAA consists of at least two proteins. Knowledge of this fact helps to explain the difficulty encountered in preparing standardized reagents for use in hepatitis research. A second group, headed by Dr. Robert H. Purcell, of NIAID, has discovered that anti-HAA is found in a large proportion of the general population having no history of hepatitis or parenteral exposure to the disease. (Serum hepatitis is thought to be transmitted by parenteral routes, that is, by direct contamination of the blood stream.) The finding implies that a large proportion of the U.S. population may have had unrecognized or subclinical hepatitis that was transmitted by nonparenteral routes (personal contact, food or water contamination). Using a new ultrasensitive technique called radioimmunoprecipitation (RIP), Dr. Purcell, Dr. Jerrold J. Lander of NIAID, and Dr. Harvey J. Alter of NIH Blood Bank department have found anti-HAA in 14.4% of 97 voluntary blood donors and in 22.6% of 93 commercial blood donors. None of the people in these studies gave a history of hepatitis, parenteral exposure, or drug addic-
tion (one way of transmitting serum hepatitis), thus eliminating common parenteral routes. In contrast, the antibody was found in 82.6% of 23 people who had had several transfusions. An incidence of 14 to 22% in the general population implies that serum hepatitis is endemic in the U.S., Dr. Purcell says. RIP is 2000 to 500,000 times more sensitive than previous methods for detecting anti-HAA, such as complement fixation. The technique involves incubating small amounts of radioactive-labeled HAA with serum being tested for anti-HAA. (HAA used in the study was prepared by zonal centrifugation and was supplied by Dr. Gerin.) Antigen antibody complex is precipitated, incubated, and centrifuged. The amount of radioactivity in the precipitate is a measure of the presence of anti-HAA. Despite the dangers and expense inherent in the use of radioisotopes, Dr. Purcell believes that RIP offers a sensitive new tool for furthering research on both antiHAA and HAA. Very little is known about HAA despite extensive research. There is evidence that HAA is the outer coating of a virus, or a virus itself (C&EN, May 3, page 23). But Dr.
John Gerin (right) and John Harris MAY 31, 1971 C&EN 5
