Tulane Professor's Work Is Ideal Example of Oak Ridge Cooperation with University

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News Letter of The Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies . . May, 1951 Tulane Professor’s Work Is Ideal Example Of Oak Ridge Cooperation With Universitv of Physiology at Tulane University, is continuing through a $9,558 grant from the Atomic Energy Commission his sir year study of the role of metal cations, particularly potassium, in living organisms. In addition to the grant from t h e Commission, Dr. Wilde has arranged to do part of his work in the laboratory of Dr. C. W. Sheppard, biophysicist with the Biology Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Wilde was a research participant with Dr. Sheppard last summer and w a s in Oak Ridge i n April to conclude arrangements certain parts of the work. Potassium is the most abundant metal cation present in living protoplasm. It performs many functions, several of which are not well understood. Potassium i s essential for growth and is a co-enzyme in the synthesis of high energy phosphate. It helps determine the magnitude of the resting bioelectric potential and regulate excitability. A potassium deficiency often arises during convalescence from disease, and gross muscular weakness ensues with gain of sodium and loss of potassium by Dr. Wilde hopes to elucidate the question of why potassium i s accumulated in tissue cells to the relative exclusion of sodium normally and why the mechanism fails or i s modified during stress. Transfer mechanisms have been postulated for pumpihg potassium into and sodium out of cells. ‘By using isotope procedures, Dr. Wilde is planning to measure the rate of these ex chan ~ processes normally, during pot as s ih ‘deficiency and a s affected by hormones and ’* by various enzyme and metabolic inhibitors. The problem is one ideally suited to the isotope method, and Dr. Wilde plans to use tissue and blood plasma sample counts, count rate meter or scintillation detector held against tissues in vivo, and urine the best example to date of the value of Oak Ridge-university research cooperation. Through the special facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he has been able to advance markedly research of significance to the atomic energy program and to biology and medicine in general. His interest in Oak Ridge had been stimulated by talks with . Dr. Sheppard at scientific meetings, and through a talk made in November, 1949, at Tulane by Dr. Russell S. Poor, Chaitman of the University Relations Division of the Institute, h e became familiar with the mechanism of the .research participation program. Additional correspondence with Dr. Sheppard revealed a wide community of Arrangements were then worked - out for Dr. Wilde to. spend the summer of 1950 with desirable, both from the standpoint of the University apd t h e Laboratory, to have two assistants accompany Dr. Wilde and work with him at Oak Ridge. Accordingly, G. W. Walker and a chemical technician, Mrs. Edwin T. McNamee, were able to spend the thus providing Dr. Wilde with a research The summer project concerned the analysis of methods for measurement of turn-over rate of potassium in liver, muscle, and kidney, and the exploration of plasma potassium exchange rate, a s a ’ meaeun of total body tissue exchange, together with the effrct of agents on these ratel. Largely asa result of his summer research, Walker, who receives his M. D. degree at Tulane in June, has been named an interne at Johno Hopkins Hospital for Dr. Wdde and Mr. Walker presented a paper on the summer work a t the meeting of the American Physiological Society ar Columbus, Ohio, on September 13-16. At a symposium OII capillary permeability held by the Circulation Section, American Pbygsiological Society at Cleveland on May 2, Dr. Wilde was one of two invited d i ~ c w ~ nntr of the papers mad. He di8cussed how isotope technic impinges upon the capillary Ginsburg, a candidate for the Ph. D. degree in physiology at T dane and an npplicmt for an AEC prcdoctoral fellowship.

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News Letter of The Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies . .May, 1951 . BOARD, DIES IN CHARLESTON radiologist who served as a member of the Board of Medical Consultants of the Institute, died in Charleston, S. C. in April from cancer, a disease he had done much to combat. Dr. Taft was Professor of Radiology at the Medical College of South Catolina, and was a frequent visitor to Oak Ride in connection with the program of the Medical Division. He was 51 years of aee at the time of his death. Dr. Taft had received manv national honors for his work. He twice received the Silver Medal of the American Roentaen Ray Society, and was chairman of its committee of safety and st8ndards sad former chairman of the committee far use and rental of radium. He was second vice president of the Radiological Society of North America a d was a member of the Society’s committee on standacdizatiqa of x-ray measurements. He was South Carolina counselor for the Radiological Society and the American College of Radiology. Dr. Taft was the anthor of “Radium Lost and Found,” a humorous dissertation on numerous excutsions he made for inadvertently lost radium. T h e book was first published in 1938, with a second edition in 1946 He was technical editor of the American Jomal of Roentgenology. Dr. Taft was educated at the College of Charleston and received his M.. D. from the Medical College of South Cuolina. He did postgraduate work at the University of Michigan and the University of Vienna. He gist, until the latter*s death in 1927 and has since been in private practice and radiologist at Baker Sanitorium in Charleston. FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN 812 ADD One of the papers of most interest at the recent meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, held at Oak Ridge on April 14, was given by Dr. Camillo Anom on the radiation studies being carried out by &e Bowman Gray School of Medicine. natzer, Artom, George T. Harrell, Jr., and David Cayer has just appeared in the March issue of the Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. ’ ducting experiments on survival ptes of mice exposed to total body internal irtadiation and the effects of various materiale on these rates. The present paper concerns the effect of folic acid and vitamin BIZ. In this series of experiments, mice maintained on a Lowprotein, low-fat diet with addition of 5 per cent sulfasuridine and a vitamin B mirttre received a single injection of five microcuries of Phosphorus 32 per gram of body weight. This dose was known from ptcvious experiments to cause death of slightly less than )O per cent ot the anbab within 21 days. The numbers of mice io each of the several treatment and coaaol gtoqm were large enough to m d e the followhg statements Vitamin B12 added to tbe sulfartnidioe diet impsored ,survival rate wheterr folic acid did not; however, folic acid end cantly , increased s ~ wival time and survival rate. Putther additions of Vitamin K and biotin failed to increase the effective-