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A meeting was held during the month by the local committee o f ~e Southeasttam Section of the American Physical Lociety i n the office of the committee chairman, J. L. Fowler, a t ORNL to m a k e preliminary phnS f o r the 2960 meeting of the Section which will be held i n Gatkinburg, Conferences were held i n lkshington with NSF officials on December 16 concerning the proposal fora year-round travel i rg - teacher program for the academic year 1960-61. a revised proposal was forwarded to NSF on December 22. On the basis of this discussion Dr.Pollard visited the Savannah River install at bn on December 9. The previous evening he addressed the meting of the American Institute of Chemical Zngineers, Savannah River section. On December 15, 1959, a contracz was signed i n New York City between the American Zpiscopal Church, St. Paul's University of Tokyo, and General Atomic fora YBrk I1 100-kw reactor which is to be installed at 5t. hulls Universily on tk occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Church i n Japan, D r . Pollard attended the signing; as vice(1xhairman of the ip is c opal Church's Joint Commission on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Znergy (and as i t s only scientific member), he has had an acLive part in the several years of effort and negotiation which cuh,im ted in the tkree-party agreement .It i s hoped that the installation will be completed and i n operation by the fall of 1960. the city of Yokosuka on asite which was formerly U. 2. Canp McGill, The City Council or" Pokosuka has given i t s unanimous approval by formal ordinance for the construction of the reactor facility at this site. The reactor building with laboratories a& radioisotopeprocesEing facilities will be constructed largely through a grant made t o the University by the Fuji Z lect ric Company. University i s one of the leading universities in Japan with a student enrollment of about 10,000 and with a highly competent scienfxific staff; it will be the first university in Japan to have a training ad research reactor of its own, me reactor will be built outside of %kyo i n On December 16, Dr. Pollard addressed the A ECt s Scientific ard Prior to his lecture, he conferred with Dr. Paul IvIcDaniel Technical S:mposi-m a t Germanbwn headquarters on "I!hclear Forces and on the Oak Ridge Accelerator and with Pk. Bert Stanwood on t h e budget problems of t h e OPJNS Nedical Division, /'
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FZDICAL DIVISION - 5 January 6, 1960 work is not sufficiently far along t o permit genera liza tir - Is, except that the radiation-induced increase in tauri m ard betaaminoisobutyric acid tnat occurred i n normal, previously healthy men, ha: also been induced In a patient hit h acute leukenia and by nitrogen mustard therapy. Inall the conditions sofar studied, there has been evidence of severe bone-marrow depreszion. blood cells occurred sooner in the patient with leukemia and i n the patient given nitrogen mustard than i n the Y - 1 2 accident victims. The promptness of the increase i n beta-aninoisobutyric acid was similar i n all three groups, however. There mzy be a difference in the effect of muc"tard and irradiation on taurine metabolism, although the data sugL,r-esting this are very limited. New Isotopes. Calcium-47. The conference last month a t which various staff members cm rize d their observations on calcium-47 added much interest to -chis new isotope. I zb oratories proved to be contamimted radiochemically, apparently by rare earths.A second shipment, which p-omises to be radiochemically pure, i s expected, and plans are i n readiness for repetition of certain measureiients for comparison with the first ship mn tad the addition of certain other measurements. The drop in peripheral The first nhipment fmm Abbott Distribution Studies. Intravenous Cerium i n Dogs. Further d is tri - bution studies of cerium i n dogs began as an extension to recently completed series whose excretory pattczrns in bile,in various segments of the GI tract, and i n urine were observed. hours were also observe4 i n -these series of dogs. The duration of the 6-hour distribution pattern is ilot kmwn for the doses that were used. rke study o f two series of dogs isin progress; one i c receiving highspecific-activity cerium-l44, 2nd the other i s receiving cerium carrier added at a level that regularly induces fatty in fil tm tion in various rent results include only those through 7 days for the small chemical dose. The mzjor sites of localization renlain essentially immobile by comparison hit h the previous 6-hour patterns. Bile continues t o show no appreciable excretion a t any period. kcpressed as the DAR, the conclusions are the same except that the adrenal glands show early local i - zation that begins t o move out fairly promptly (after6 hours). pituitary is regularly quite cold, whsreas both thyroid and the parathyroid show definite localization at7 days. These observations are necessarily tentative until both dose levels can be compared a t longer Experimental periods up to 160 days a r e beirg included. studies projected i n the previous monthly summan- continue i n progress. Radioassay measurements are planned at6 months and one year after treated rats entering the second month have a slightly impaired rate of growth by comparison with their controls. The current observations indicate that the ceriumAfter Treatment With Cerium, Free Fatty Acids (FFA) in the Plasma of Rats I n the previous monthly summary, methodology for the micro titration of nonesterified fatty acids in plaSma intravenous cerium on the level of FFA i n the plasma of rats. PIeasurements are mer way to define the effect of
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Low activity cesiwl-137 sources as mockup for the therapy sources i n the total-body irradiation facility a E bcing prepared for all eight The lanthanun-140 study of dose received by the intestinal tract and resulting from the ingestion o f “nonabsorbable” activity has been halted temporarily because of the lack of suitable patients for study. The increased excretion of taurine ard beta-aminoisobutyric acid by normal humans after sublethal and lethal irradiation has been the subject of a number of previous highlight reports. therefore, t o consider the changes that occur inpatients with leukemia after total-body irradiation and inpatients with a variety of malignancies after a large, single, intravenous dose of nitrogen mustard. The tiata from these gmups are particularly interesting since samples can be collected before irradiation or administration o f mustard and base-line data can be obtained. It i s of interest, A beginning has been made i n this work and data from two patients are summarized i n the following table: Effect of Total - Body Irradiation or Nitmgen Mustard on Taurine and BAIB Excretion Days Relative Amino Acid aril t o Treatment Excretion Level, mg/day Eight hundred r total-body irradiation with garma rays from cobalt-60 induced a l3-fold increase in beta-aininoisobutyric acid excretion. effect was prompt and short-lived. taurine excretion appears later than that for beta-aminoisobutyric acid. Tnis delayed taurine peak was also seen i n subject k of the Y-12 group. The effect on taurine excretion was The peak elevation in One mg/kg nitroger, nustard groduced a pmmpt, 8-fold increase i n beta-aminoisobutyric acid . This effect had completely subsided by the fourth day after treatment. The effect on ‘taurine excretion was also The taurine excretion was still3 times the pretreatment level on the fourth day after mustard therapy. An increase of 4 times occurred on the first day after treatment.