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AT UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO The hormone that stimulates red blood cell formation - - erythropoietin - - has been isolated in pure form for the first time by researchers at the University of Chicago and the Atomic Energy Commission's Argonne Cancer Research Hospital. The achievement,which is potentially very important to kidney disease patients, was the work of Dr. Eugene Goldwasser, Professor of Biochemistry in The Division of the Biological Sciences and The Pritzker School of Medicine atthe University,and Charles Kung, Senior Scientist at the ACRH.Financial support was provided by the AEC. The existence of erythropoietin has been known forat in such minute traces that,until now, it has never been isolated in pure form. Tne hormone must be in a pure state in order for researchers to study its chemical nature and use it in clinical trials. Once the chemical structure is known i t may be possible,also,to produce it synthetically. Erythropoietin was separated from the blood of anemic sheep which contain about100 times more of the material than does the blood of healthy sheep. Even so,blood from 150sheep is required to produce 200 millionths of a gram (seven millionths of an ounce). Anemic humans also produce relatively larger amounts of erythropoietin,but excrete it in urine. Kidney disease patients eventually may benefit greatly from the achievement since they do not produce the hormone
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and suffer severe anemia. The frequent transfusions which they require increase the risk of hepatitis and of a buildup of iron in the system. If it were possible to treat them with pure erythropoietin, they might be able to lead a relatively normal life, much like a diabetic patient taking insulin,according to Dr. Goldw as ser. However, Ur.Goldwasser estimates that the cost of the treatment,initially atleast, would be very great. To treat five patients, would cost almost $ 75,000, he said, meaning that it will be along time before there is enough available for all who need it. In addition to the clinical possibilities,the isolation is expected to be a useful tool in biological research. "The mechanism by which one cell is instructed to make hemoglobin while others around it are not so instructed is fascinating, " Ur. Goldwasser says. "We now have two well - define a endpoints - - with pure erythropoietin at one end and the cell containing hernoglobin at the other. What we want to know i s what happens in between. ' : Dr. Goldwasser is continuing research on the biological aspects of