Development of biochemistry in the Biology Department of Kharkhov State University. Formation of a new direction--physiology and biochemistry of aging

The article presents some data on teaching Biochemistry at the Nature Department of Kharkiv Imperial University Physico-Mathematical Faculty, as well as restoration of biochemical education and scientific researches as a result of the University reorganization in the Soviet period and foundation of the Biochemistry Chair at the Biological Faculty in the renovated Kharkiv State University. The analysis of scientific biochemical investigations conducted in the Kharkiv University till now is revealed. The special attention is paid to development of such a scientific trend as age physiology and biochemistry. The article deals with the comprehensive information on scientific and pedagogical activity of the outstanding scientists such as O. V. Nagorny and I. M. Bulankin as founders of the Kharkiv school of age physiology and biochemistry. The work has utilized some archive data.     

Research of the academician I. N. Bulankin on problems of protein chemistry

The article presents an information about scientific researches on the problem of chemical properties and structure of proteins, which were carried out intensively by the biochemists of Kharkiv State University in 30-50 years of XX cent., headed by I. N. Bulankin, academician of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. This researches dealt with the processes of proteolysis and protein denaturation, the peculiarities of globular and fibrilliar proteins behavior in solution, the properties of complexes with proteins and nucleic acids, etc. The historic analysis of origin and development of this scientific problem at the biochemistry chair of the university and its gradual replacement by researches with other biochemical problems has been carried out. The data concerned with the general situation in the field protein structure of estimation at the world and home biochemistry are cited too. In connection with the above presented the authors give the grounded conclusions about the importance of the scientific researches carried out by I. N. Bulankin as well as about.     

Academician V.E. Sokolov at the head of the General Biology Department

This paper considers the activity of Academician V.E. Sokolov as head of the General Biology Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which he headed from 1985 to 1998. The history of the struggle for the preservation of biological science, carried out by Sokolov and the Department headed by him over more than ten years, is shown based on archival and little-known published materials. Examples are given of the activity of the General Biology Department that had great scientific, public, and nature-conservation significance.     

阿司匹林引发上消化道出血的相关危险因素研究

目的:比较由阿司匹林引发上消化道出血的相关危险因素OR值,探讨其引起消化道大出血的相关机制。方法:收集哈医大四院消化内科及心内科2009年5月份至2013年6月份仅口服阿司匹林一种非甾体抗炎药的100例患者,用药过程中引发上消化道出血的49例患者作为研究组,其余未发生消化道出血的51例患者作为对照组,采集现病史、既往史、吸烟史、行凝血常规、Hp检测及胃镜检查,经单因素统计分析筛选出阿司匹林引发上消化道出血的危险因素;通过多元Logistic回归分析得出阿司匹林引发上消化道出血的独立危险因素。结果:年龄60岁、Hp感染、既往溃疡病史、糖尿病、吸烟的患者在研究组所占比例明显高于对照组,差异具有统计学意义;经多元Logistic回归后表明年龄60岁、Hp感染、既往溃疡病史、糖尿病患者和阿司匹林引发上消化道出血的OR值具有统计学差异。结论:年龄60岁、Hp感染、溃疡病史、糖尿病患者是阿司匹林引发上消化道出血的4个独立危险因素。     

Subsurface cisterns in the Purkinje cells of cerebellum of Syrian hamster

Summary Three types of subsurface cisterns were observed in Purkinje cells of the cerebellum of the Syrian hamster. The type-1 cisterns are subsynaptic, related to axosomatic synapses, and are separated from the postsynaptic cell membranes with distances of 400–800 Å. These are probably modified rough surfaced endoplasmic reticulum. The type-2 cisterns are closely apposed to the surface membranes of Purkinje cells, and have very little intracisternal space except at the dilated lateral edges. The type-3 cisterns are similar in structure to the type-2 cisterns but in addition are closely associated with mitochondria. The type-2 and type-3 cisterns appear between one and two weeks after birth and are still present in adults, having almost the same frequency of occurrence. Thin cell processes opposite the type-2 and type-3 cisterns are considered to be glial cell processes. The morphological details of these types of subsurface cisterns are described here, and their possible functional significance is briefly discussed.This work was carried out at the Department of Anatomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, and was supported by grants from the China Medical Board of New York and Anatomical Training Grant GM114 from the USPHS.Dr. Takahashi wishes to express his sincere thanks to Dr. A. Lazarow and Dr. R. L. Wood of the Department of Anatomy, University of Minnesota, who enabled him to use facilities for electron microscopy.     

Development of Ideas of Nervous Trophics for the Last Quarter of the XXth Century

This review considers studies carried out for the last few years, which confirms and develop the ideas of Prof. V.S. Il'in about biochemical principles of nervous trophics. These principles have been experimentally substantiated in the works of researchers of the Department of Biochemistry of the Institute of Experimental Medicine as early as in the 1960–1970s.     

The concepts of M.V. Gusev on microbial physiology and its role in the system of biological sciences

This article deals with the formation and development of the physiological methodological approach to microbial life-sustaining activities as related to M.V. Gusev’s scientific achievements. It summarizes M.V. Gusev’s concepts on microbial physiology and its role in the system of the life sciences. The main research directions developed at the Department of Microbial Physiology at Moscow State University are outlined.     

Review of in vivo static and ELF electric fields studies performed at Gazi Biophysics Department

In vivo effects of Static Electric and ELF Magnetic and Electric fields have been carried out for more than 20 years in the Bioelectromagnetic Laboratory at the Biophysics Department of the Medical Faculty of Gazi University. In this article, the results of in vivo ELF Electric field studies are presented as a review. Static and 50 Hz ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) Electric (E) fields effects on free radical synthesis, antioxidant enzyme level, and collagen synthesis were analyzed on tissues of guinea pigs, such as brain, liver, lung, kidney, spleen, testis, and plasma. Animals were exposed to static and ELF electric fields with intensities ranging from 0.3 kV/m to 1.9 kV/m in vertical and horizontal directions. Exposure periods were 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10 days. Electric fields were generated from a specially designed parallel plate capacitor system. The results indicate that the effects of electric fields on the tissues studied depend significantly on the type and magnitude of electric field and exposure period.     

Medical women of the West.

The presence in the West of women physicians with degrees from regular medical schools spans a period of approximately 130 years. Women''s Medical College of Pennsylvania graduated many of these early women physicians. The first woman medical graduate of a western school was Lucy M. Field Wanzer, who finished in 1876 at the Department of Medicine, University of California in San Francisco. Soon thereafter, schools that would become Stanford University and the Oregon Health Sciences University schools of medicine, as well as the newly founded University of Southern California, were contributing to the pool of women physicians. The University of Michigan Medical School, the first coeducational state medical school, also educated some of the western women physicians, who by 1910 numbered about 155. This regional account of the progress of women physicians as they strove to become an integral part of the profession emphasizes the familiar themes of altruism, ingenuity, and perseverance that characterized their efforts.     

History of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine, 1813-2010

The Department of Cell Biology at the Yale University School of Medicine was established in 1983. It was preceded by the Section of Cell Biology, which was formed in 1973 when George E. Palade and collaborators came to Yale from the Rockefeller University. Cell Biology at Yale had its origins in the Department of Anatomy that existed from the beginning of classes at the Medical Institution of Yale College in 1813. This article reviews the history of the Department of Anatomy at Yale and its evolution into Cell Biology that began with the introduction of histology into the curriculum in the 1860s. The formation and development of the Section and Department of Cell Biology in the second half of the 20th century to the present time are described. Biographies and research activities of the chairs and key faculty in anatomy and cell biology are provided.     

Cytochemical and immunofluorescence investigations on insulin-like producing cells in the intestine of Mytilus edulis L. (Bivalvia)

Summary Insulin-like immunoreactivity can be localized to cells of the intestine in the-area of the hepatopancreas of Mytilus edulis L. No cross-reactivity can be obtained with anti-glucagon, anti-gastrin, anti-pentagastrin or anticaerulin. The cells containing the substance immunoreactive to mammalian anti-insulin, can be restained with paraldehyde-fuchsin.I thank Prof. A.G.E. Pearse for the opportunity to carry out this work in the Department of Histochemistry, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London, England. The work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes e.V., Germany (FRG).Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Drs. h.c. W. Bargmann at his 70th birthday.     

Imagination and Creativity in Childhood

A reflexological study of child development was first attempted by Academician V. M. Bekhterev in a series of studies published in Vestnik psikhologiya from 1908 onward. (1) An independent reflexology department was established at the Petrograd Pedological Institute in 1922. Here, under the direction of Bekhterev and Department Head N. Shchelovanov and their colleagues (Director M. P. Denisova, N. L. Figurin, Director A. M. Lukina, Director V. N. Dobrokhotova, Director Z. F. Khlestova), a systematic investigation was carried out that involved continuous observation and recording of all the responses of children to external and internal stimuli, as well as the reflexological experiment and other methods. An extremely large amount of factual data was accumulated (over 4,000 pages of daily reports and protocols of experiments involving infants up to the age of six months who were under the care of the Infant Department of the Institute). The present report is a summary of analyses of only a part of these factual data.     

The genetics of behavior

A review of the papers published in the Journal of Higher Nervous Activity dedicated to behavioral and neurophysiological studies carried out using the genetic approach is presented. The review is based on classification, which subdivides the diversity of behavioral phenomena into three large categories: instinctive, acquired behavior, and elementary reasoning phenomena. The main contribution to these publications was made by researches at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch (Novosibirsk), Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences (St.-Petersburg), and Department of Physiology of Higher Nervous Activity, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov State University (Moscow). The traditional lines of investigations are: behavioral and neurochemical consequences of domestication, numerous physiological correlations in rat strains selected for high and low excitability levels, and genetic studies of animal reasoning.     

Some foundations of contemporary methods for culturing preimplantation embryos; a personal account

This article traces the history of the work on mammalian embryos carried out by the author, his students and related scientists. It traces the work from the initial experiments at the King Ranch Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania in 1966, the set up of an embryo culture laboratory at the Department of Veterinary Physiology, University of Sydney and the work within that laboratory from 1967 to 1974. This is followed by an account of the author's subsequent work at Murdoch University from 1975 till his retirement in 1996. The significant role of some of the author's graduate students in human IVF is also documented.     

Raymond Dart as a pioneering primatologist

Raymond Dart is best known today for his groundbreaking research in palaeoanthropology. It is often forgotten, however, that Dart was a scientist of many interests, who made significant contributions to various disciplines. One of these is the study of living non-human primates. Dart became aware of the importance of primate studies and their relevance for research in other disciplines early in his career. In the late 1920s Dart established a colony of captive baboons in the Anatomy Department, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. On these animals, members of his Department, most notably Joseph Gillman and Christine Gilbert, carried out a number of significant behavioural and endocrinological researches. In 1930, as a member of an Italian Scientific Expedition, Dart was involved in hunting a mountain gorilla (for research purposes). He was also active in primate field studies. In 1957 he and Phillip Tobias founded a Witwatersrand University Uganda Gorilla Research Unit for the study of the Virunga mountain gorillas. The unit produced pioneering studies, conducted by Jill Donisthorpe, on the behaviour of these primates in their natural habitat. At the same time Dart was actively engaged in conservation of the mountain gorillas. He also studied South African chacma baboons in the wild. In the field of primate studies Raymond Dart figures prominently as a pioneering catalyst as well as researcher and conservationist.     

An improved basal medium for Y-1 mouse adrenal cortex tumor cells in culture

Summary Y-1 cells were passaged weekly for 6 wk in MACT IV medium without a period of adaptation to this basal medium that requires 1% dialyzed fetal bovine serum as a supplement. The steroid pathway and chromosome number, reported earlier for this cell line under culture conditions that used much higher concentrations of nondialyzed sera, remained stable despite dialysis and reduction of the fetal bovine serum to 1%. Mass spectral analyses were carried out at the Mass Spectrometric Facility for Biomedical Research, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, supported by NIH Grant RR-00273. This research was supported by the Medical Research Service of the Veterans Administration.     

Antigenic relationship of influenza-virus neuraminidases from Asian,Hong Kong,and Equi-2 strains

Two Asian influenza strains, the Hong Kong strain and an Equi-2 influenza strain have been investigated. Adsorption isotherms of purified neuraminidases from these strains with isolated antibodies from homologous antisera are given. Cross testing by neuraminidase inhibition and haemagglutination inhibition are reported. Hong Kong neuraminidase appears to be indistinguishable from the earlier Asian neuraminidases, and not related to Equi-2 influenza neuraminidase. The haemagglutinin from the Hong Kong strain is related to earlier Asian strains as well as to the equine strain.In collaboration with the Chief Medical Officer of Health and Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, Den Haag, The Netherlands.It is a pleasure to express our thanks to Mr. J. Jacobs, N. V. Philips Duphar, Weesp (The Netherlands) for his interesting discussions and suggestions; and to Mr. H. de Jonge, Department of Medical Statistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands) for his advice.     

Les terrasses fluviatiles quaternaires de la Somme à Abbeville : 150 ans de recherches mêlant géologie et archéologie,de Boucher de Perthes à aujourd’hui

Paleolithic localities associated with fossil fluvial formations of the Somme River at Abbeville have played a significant role in the recognition of human antiquity. From the end of the 18th century, the work carried out in particular by the “Société d’émulation d’Abbeville” led to the emergence of studies in the Somme valley on both Quaternary Geology and Prehistory. It was within this scholarly society that Jacques Boucher de Perthes initiated his research on the famous localities of Menchecourt, Hospital and Moulin Quignon in 1837. These observations were quickly confirmed by geologists such as Albert Gaudry, Charles-Joseph Buteux or Joseph Prestwich. It was the latter who introduced the Abbeville deposits into the United-Kingdom scientist community and his observations were used as early as 1859 by Charles Lyell to demonstrate the antiquity of the archaeological remains collected from these localities. However, the controversy surrounding by the discovery of the human jaw of Moulin Quignon (1863–1864), which undermined the credibility of this locality for a long time, led to the decrease of the archaeological researches in the Somme valley, and in particular in Abbeville, but it then resumed quite quickly. However, if the work carried out by Geoffroy d’Ault du Mesnil from 1875 to 1898 had the merit to reaffirm the archaeological importance of the Abbeville deposits and to reveal the complexity of their Quaternary records, the geographical and stratigraphic imprecision resulting from these rare publications, coupled with the gradual abandonment of the various gravel pits whose exploitation he followed, cast a significant discredit on these discoveries and on the stratigraphical observations he made there. The researches carried out then by Victor Commont at Carpentier Quarry between 1904 and 1918 were characterized by the excellence of the stratigraphic and iconographic data he produced for each of the studied sites. However the absence of archaeological discoveries in the fluvial deposits he studied lead the prehistorians who succeeded him increasingly doubted of the veracity of Ault's observations, despite the efforts made by Abbé Henri Breuil to reconcile these with Commont's observations. Between the two world wars, Breuil and Léon Aufrère resumed the study of the Abbeville deposits then still accessible, tried to ensure their preservation, through the purchase and protection of the Carpentier and Léon quarries, a decisive intervention in the archaeological rehabilitation of these deposits. These works were at the origin of the chronostratigraphic studies carried out on these major localities of the ancient European prehistory until today. Over the past ten years, some of these localities have been studied again, thus largely confirming the observations made by the elders (Boucher de Perthes, d’Ault du Mesnil, Commont) and validating the major place of Abbeville in the understanding of ancient prehistory settlement of northwestern Europe.