Lysenkoism in Poland

This article describes the impact of, and response to, Trofim D. Lysenko’s anti-genetics campaign in Poland between the years 1949 and 1956. It focuses particularly upon the response of three individuals – Teodor Marchlewski, Wac?aw Gajewski, and Aleksandra Putrament – who were central figures in the controversy in Poland. In addition to examining the responses and motivations of these individuals, the article also addresses the question of why the Lysenko-era in Poland ended relatively earlier than in neighboring Soviet-allied states such as Hungary, East Germany or Czechoslovakia, as well as 9?years before Lysenko was forced from power in the USSR. I argue that conditions specific to Polish politics and Poland’s relationship with the Soviet Union, during the Thaw after Stalin’s death, provided the opponents of “Lysenkoism” in Poland with an opportunity to criticize Lysenko, and restore Polish genetics. These conditions are linked to the near-revolution in Poland following the strike in Poznan in June, 1956, and successful transition of power between Edward Ochab and W?adys?aw Gomu?ka the following October.     

The Lyssenko affair: the eclipse of reason

Trofim Lysenko was a Ukrainian peasant whose malign influence dominated biology in the Soviet Union and its imperium through most of Stalin's reign. Lysenko owed his ascendancy to repeated promises that he would rescue Soviet agriculture from the catastrophic state into which it had sunk, following Stalin's disastrous policy of collectivisation of the farms, and a succession of bad harvests. He claimed to have devised methods of imposing desirable hereditary characteristics on plants, and even of converting one species into another at will. He noisily denounced modern genetics as a bourgeois imposture, a view that resonated well with Marxist doctrine. As Lysenko's power grew he was able to smother scientific debate, and to crush all opposition through the arrest and often execution of many leading scientists. Lysenko's preposterous theories became the accepted orthodoxy in the academies and universities of Eastern Europe, and were greeted with enthusiasm by many Communist intellectuals in the West, not least in France. The Lysenko phenomenon is the most extreme, but by no means the only example of the perversion of science by ideology, often with the acquiescence of the scientific community. Nor can we be confident that nothing of the kind could happen today.     

Endothelial and epithelial signaling in the lung

In recent years, pulmonary research has focused increasingly on the understanding of proinflammatory endothelial and epithelial signaling pathways underlying lung injury that is well known to be associated with high morbidity and mortality. Although traditionally considered separately, current research shows considerable convergence in epithelial and endothelial signaling mechanisms. This was well emphasized in the featured topic session held during the Experimental Biology 2007 Meeting in Washington, D.C., that addressed the complex interdependence between signaling pathways in the two cellular phenotypes. Several perspectives on endothelial and epithelial signaling, as well as their contributions to pulmonary inflammation and damage, as presented and discussed in the session are summarized here.     

C.D. Darlington and the British and American reaction to Lysenko and the Soviet conception of science

The Anglo-American reaction to the Lysenkoaffair has been treated primarily either fromthe point of view of the political Right orLeft, or as a consequence of post-WWIIinternational relations. None of the accountshave considered the central role of the Britishcytogeneticist and evolutionist C.D.Darlington. This article considers Darlington'srole, and illustrates how, through an analysisof his divergent reaction, it becomes possibleto see the response to Lysenko as a reflectionof internal scientific and political debatesconcerning the planning, funding, utility, andfreedom of science in post-war Britain.     

A novel view of ferritin in cancer

Since its discovery more than 85 years ago, ferritin has principally been known as an iron storage protein. However, new roles, beyond iron storage, are being uncovered. Novel processes involving ferritin such as ferritinophagy and ferroptosis and as a cellular iron delivery protein not only expand our thinking on the range of contributions of this protein but present an opportunity to target these pathways in cancers. The key question we focus on within this review is whether ferritin modulation represents a useful approach for treating cancers. We discussed novel functions and processes of this protein in cancers. We are not limiting this review to cell intrinsic modulation of ferritin in cancers, but also focus on its utility in the trojan horse approach in cancer therapeutics. The novel functions of ferritin as discussed herein realize the multiple roles of ferritin in cell biology that can be probed for therapeutic opportunities and further research.     

Prediction of secondary structures of nucleic acids: algorithmic and physical aspects

Prediction of secondary structures in nucleic acids requires both an adequate physical model and powerful calculation algorithms. In our approach, we cut the molecules in sections of which the contributions to the global energy are context-dependent but roughly additive. The structure of minimum energy is obtained by a tree search under constraints of binary incompatibilities. Our algorithm of the "incompatibility islets" is shown to be more powerful than the "bit parallel forward checking" algorithm, well known in Artificial Intelligence. Recurrent algorithms, proposed by other authors are even more rapid, but often miss the correct structures, for they demand a strict additivity of the energetic contributions, physically unjustified. New strategies, required to deal with molecules of more than 200 nucleotides are discussed. Our physical model has been improved by considering the special case of internal loops beginning with a G-A opposition. A bonus of 1.5 kcal. is attributed to such a feature, at each side of an internal loop. To illustrate our programs, we give the computed schemes for the 3' termini of the small subunit ribosomal RNA.     

Alternative origins of stroma in normal organs and disease

Stromal fibroblasts are a new prospective drug target. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) and monocyte-derived stromal cells, also known as fibrocytes, are distinct fibroblastic populations derived from separate lineages. Mesenchymal and myeloid fibroblast progenitors are multipotent, serve as progenitor cells in animal models, and are implicated in several diseases. In addition, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been established as a mechanism for generation of stromal cells. Organ sources, relative contributions, and functions of these populations in normal development and pathology are not well understood. Innovative approaches are needed to identify markers that can distinguish these stromal populations.     

Analysis of arthropod bloodmeals using molecular genetic markers

Little is known about the transmission dynamics of human malaria and other vector-borne diseases, partly because of the limited availability and distribution of appropriate tools for quantifying human-mosquito contact rates. Recent developments in molecular biology have allowed a significant increase in the efficacy and reliability of bloodmeal identification, and DNA-based molecular markers are now being harnessed for typing arthropod bloodmeals. The extent to which these markers have been used for analysis of mosquito bloodmeals and the potential they might have for the future is discussed, and the contributions that the advent of PCR has made are examined here.     

A “second front” in Soviet genetics: The international dimension of the Lysenko controversy, 1944–1947

Concluding Remarks While the simple historical view has pictured the Lysenko controversy as an uninterrupted series of Lysenko's victories-beginning with the 1936 discussion, and culminating in the infamous August 1948 meeting of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, when genetics was officially abolished in the Soviet Union-it was certainly more complex, as recognized by such serious historians as David Joravsky and Mark Adams. As we have seen, the roles the competitors assumed in 1945–47 were the reverse of those they assumed in the 1930s: the geneticists managed to gain the offensive, and Lysenko was forced to defend his position.This episode suggests that the Communist Party leadership probably did not have a special bias against genetics, nor a particular preference toward Lysenko at that time. The actual decisions of the Party apparatus on particular science policies were based upon the current priorities of general foreign and domestic policies, rather than upon an orthodox Party line in esoteric scientific questions. It is clear and has been recognized by some historians that the Soviet scientific community was not a passive, monolithic object of the manipulation, control, and repression exercised by the Communist Party leadership; various groups within the Soviet scientific community actively exploited every opportunity provided by the Party's policies to achieve their own objectives.The Lysenko controversy illustrates the profound impact of international events on Soviet science and suggests that its history cannot be understood as a result of exclusively domestic affairs, but should be explicated within a broader framework of interaction between Soviet domestic and international policies and between the Soviet and Western scientific communities. As we have seen, one of the major causes of the geneticists' success in the postwar struggle with Lysenkoists was the shift of Soviet foreign policies toward internationalism stimulated by the wartime alliance between the Big Three. This suggests that the so-called death of genetics in the Soviet Union in August 1948 was also the result of another dramatic shift in the international situation: the climax of the Cold War confrontation between former allies in the summer of 1948, which marked the final division of postwar Europe and the world into two opposing camps, East and West.     

Electromagnetic-field exposure and cancer

Electromagnetic fields are a ubiquitous part of man's environment. Natural sources of energy have been present, and possibly have contributed to the processes of the evolution of living forms. In very recent time, however, exploitation of the properties of the electromagnetic spectrum, has added variables in intensity, frequency, modulation frequency, and alterations in contributions of electrical and magnetic components. Biological impact has been little studied and poorly defined. Animal carcinogenesis studies and human epidemiological data indicate that exposure to nonionizing radiation can play a role in cancer causation. Numerous effects at the physiological and biochemical level have been reported; many are of such a nature that a relationship to the causation of neoplastic transformation can rationally be hypothesized. Many bioeffects of electromagnetic fields can be adequately and economically explained in terms of heat effects alone. However, observations of frequency-, pulse form or modulation-, and intensity-specificity as well as effects opposite to that known for temperature-rise, imply direct interaction of radiant energy with biomolecules. The possibility of such direct interaction has been shown in quantum mechanical models.     

Binding free energy calculations of galectin-3-ligand interactions

Galectins show remarkable binding specificity towards beta-galactosides. A recently developed method for calculating binding free energies between a protein and its substrates has been used to evaluate the binding specificity of galectin-3. Five disaccharides and a tetrasaccharide were used as the substrates. The calculated binding free energies agree quite well with the experimental data and the ranking of binding affinities is well reproduced. For all the six protein-ligand complexes it was observed that electrostatic interactions oppose binding whereas the non-polar contributions drive complex formation. The observed binding specificity of galectin-3 for galactosides rather than glucosides is discussed in light of our results.     

Poetry, physiology, and puerperal fever: understanding the young Oliver Wendell Holmes

The 19th-century American physician Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) is known, internationally, more for his literary output than for his contributions to medical science. Yet a single paper he wrote in 1843--"The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever"--has made him a hero in the eyes of many (especially in the United States) of the struggle against that scourge. Why that one article, written when Holmes was still in his thirties, should--even in its expanded 1855 version--so routinely be referred to as a "classic of medical literature", and why its author should have been raised on such a high pedestal that some grant him a position beside Ignác Semmelweis, are complicated questions. This present paper is an attempt to begin assessing what it is that makes someone a medical hero by looking at three different aspects of Holmes's early career. He was even as a young man a poet and a physiologist/anatomist as well as the author of this important essay. Whether and how those three features of Holmes's many-sides public persona are connected is discussed as a prelude to considering whether his work on puerperal fever legitimates his status as a medical hero.     

The Phylogenetic Diversity of Aerobic Organotrophic Bacteria from the Dagang High-Temperature Oil Field

The distribution and species diversity of aerobic organotrophic bacteria in the Dagang high-temperature oil field (China), which is exploited with water-flooding, have been studied. Twenty-two strains of the most characteristic thermophilic and mesophilic aerobic organotrophic bacteria have been isolated from the oil stratum. It has been found that, in a laboratory, the mesophilic and thermophilic isolates grow in the temperature, pH, and salinity ranges characteristic of the injection well near-bottom zones or of the oil stratum, respectively, and assimilate a wide range of hydrocarbons, fatty acids, lower alcohols, and crude oil, thus exhibiting adaptation to the environment. Using comparative phylogenetic 16S rRNA analysis, the taxonomic affiliation of the isolates has been established. The aerobic microbial community includes gram-positive bacteria with a high and low G+C content of DNA, and γ and β subclasses of Proteobacteria. The thermophilic bacteria belong to the genera Geobacillus and Thermoactinomyces, and the mesophilic strains belong to the genera Bacillus, Micrococcus, Cellulomonas, Pseudomonas, and Acinetobacter. The microbial community of the oil stratum is dominated by known species of the genus Geobacillus (G. subterraneus, G. stearothermophilus, and G. thermoglucosidasius) and a novel species “Geobacillus jurassicus.” A number of novel thermophilic oil-oxidizing bacilli have been isolated.__________Translated from Mikrobiologiya, Vol. 74, No. 3, 2005, pp. 401–409.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by Nazina, Sokolova, Shestakova, Grigoryan, Mikhailova, Babich, Lysenko, Tourova, Poltaraus, Qingxian Feng, Fangtian Ni, Belyaev.     

Mechano-electrical Transduction: New Insights into Old Ideas

The gating-spring theory of hair cell mechanotransduction channel activation was first postulated over twenty years ago. The basic tenets of this hypothesis have been reaffirmed in hair cells from both auditory and vestibular systems and across species. In fact, the basic findings have been reproduced in every hair cell type tested. A great deal of information regarding the structural, mechanical, molecular and biophysical properties of the sensory hair bundle and the mechanotransducer channel has accumulated over the past twenty years. The goal of this review is to investigate new data, using the gating spring hypothesis as the framework for discussion. Mechanisms of channel gating are presented in reference to the need for a molecular gating spring or for tethering to the intra- or extracellular compartments. Dynamics of the sensory hair bundle and the presence of motor proteins are discussed in reference to passive contributions of the hair bundle to gating compliance. And finally, the molecular identity of the channel is discussed in reference to known intrinsic properties of the native transducer channel.     

薜荔榕小蜂(Blastophaga pumilae Hill)与薜荔(Ficus pumila L.)的共生关系

榕属(Ficus)植物皆具隐头花序,我国有120种,分布很广。榕小蜂与榕树有着密切的共生关系。本文首次报道了我国此类动、植物的共生现象;发现了在同一个花序中雄花迟熟达一年的第一例植物;摸清了我国大陆新分布的薜荔榕小蜂的生活史;论述了发育的同步性、结构与功能的统一性。其内容可作为了解榕属植物的隐头花序与榕小蜂特殊的形态结构、生活方式、传粉过程及体现在其中的生钫进化辩证法则的代表。因取材于分布最广的薜荔,敬为相关学科的教学、科研提供了生动易得的倒证。文末提出尚待解决的问题。     

Siebengebirge – im Saum der Großlandschaften. Die Exkursion

The Siebengebirge Mountains, facing Bonn and situated between the Lower Rhine Bight and the well known Middle Rhine valley, cover an area of only some 4800 ha, but represent a fairly unusual complex with respect to landscape and nature. Already some famous exploring travellors of the 18th century such as Georg Forster, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Alexander von Humboldt consistently emphasized the striking diversity and natural beauty of this area. No other part of Germany has hitherto been dealt with by a comparable array of special (geologically as well as biologically centered) investigations and compiling contributions. An excursion proposal recommends a closer inspection of that fascinating landscape.     

Metabolic engineering of isoprenoids

The metabolic engineering of natural products has begun to prosper in the past few years due to genomic research and the discovery of biosynthetic genes. While the biosynthetic pathways and genes for some isoprenoids have been known for many years, new pathways have been found and known pathways have been further investigated. In this article, we review the recent advances in metabolic engineering of isoprenoids, focusing on the molecular genetics that affects pathway engineering the most. Examples in mono- sequi-, and diterpenoid synthesis as well as carotenoid production are discussed.     

ER stress and neurodegenerative diseases

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is caused by disturbances in the structure and function of the ER with the accumulation of misfolded proteins and alterations in the calcium homeostasis. The ER response is characterized by changes in specific proteins, causing translational attenuation, induction of ER chaperones and degradation of misfolded proteins. In case of prolonged or aggravated ER stress, cellular signals leading to cell death are activated. ER stress has been suggested to be involved in some human neuronal diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and prion disease, as well as other disorders. The exact contributions to and casual effects of ER stress in the various disease processes, however, are not known. Here we will discuss the possible role of ER stress in neurodegenerative diseases, and highlight current knowledge in this field that may reveal novel insight into disease mechanisms and help to design better therapies for these disorders.     

The pH and redox-state dependence of the copper site in azurin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa as studied by EXAFS

The EXAFS of the K-edge of copper in azurin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been measured in solutions of the oxidized and reduced protein, at both low and high pH. Model compounds of known molecular structure, exhibiting Cu-N and Cu-S bonds of varying length, were studied as well. The major shell of the high-pH oxidized azurin EXAFS contains contributions of two N(His) at 1.95 +/- 0.03 A, and one S(Cys) at 2.23 +/- 0.03 A. Some minor contributions from the carbon atoms of the histidine residues and the distal sulfur atom are observed in the 3-4 A region. Upon reduction a decrease is seen in amplitude of the main peak in the Fourier transform, due to a lengthening of one of the Cu-N(His) bonds (2.05 +/- 0.03 A), and a shortening of the other (1.89 +/- 0.03 A), both by approx. 0.1 A. Indications for a Cu-S(Met) bond are found in the reduced azurin data (2.70 +/- 0.05 A). However, in the oxidized protein, this bond could not be determined unambiguously, in line with results of a model compound featuring weak Cu-thioether coordination. The effect of pH is only slight for both the oxidized and the reduced protein, and no significant changes in bond lengths are found upon a change of pH from 4.1 to 9.1. The relevance of these findings for the interpretation of the existing data on the redox activity of the protein is discussed.     

A (selective) history of Australian involvement in cytokine biology

This review focuses on contributions to cytokine biology made by Australians in Australia. It is clearly biased by my own experiences and selective recollections especially related to the colony-stimulating factors in which Australian involvement has been pre-eminent from discovery to clinical use. Nevertheless Australian scientists have also made profound contributions to other areas of cytokine and growth factor biology (including interferons, inflammatory cytokines, chemokines and epidermal, insulin-like and vascular endothelial growth factors) that are briefly described in this review as well as other chapters in this volume.