Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes
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| Дата: | 2012 |
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| Формат: | Стаття |
| Мова: | English |
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Інститут молекулярної біології і генетики НАН України
2012
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| Назва видання: | Вiopolymers and Cell |
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| Онлайн доступ: | http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/156838 |
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| Назва журналу: | Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
| Цитувати: | Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes / K. Maramorosch // Вiopolymers and Cell. — 2012. — Т. 28, № 2, доп. — С. 21-22. — англ. |
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Keynote Speaker
22
From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes
Maramorosch K.
Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, Entomology Department,
93 Lipman Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
maramorosch@yahoo.com
In 1939 two plant physiologists, Percy W. Zimmerman and Albert E. Hitchcock, working
at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Yonkers, New York, discovered
and patented in the United States the weed killing action of 2,4-D (dichlorophenoxy
acetic acid). At the same time the Dupont Company in Wilmington, Delaware, applied
and received the patent for 2,4-D for the whole world, except the United States. I
wondered how the original discovery was made. Zimmerman told me that he tried
numerous chemical compounds, the names of which he found in the Chemical Abstracts.
There a dermatologist described how he used 2,4-D to cure athlete's food of a policeman.
Although the chemical could be synthesized, Zimmerman was not a chemist and he
needed help. A 16-year-old high school student was hired as a summer helper. After 8
weeks, the boy handed one gram of 2,4-D to Zimmerman and left. When the chemical
was applied to broad-leafed plants, they grew rapidly, collapsed, and died. Thus the first
weed killer was discovered. Since 1954 I tried to find who the bright summer helper was,
but no records were kept of such temporary workers, who were paid 40 cents per hour.
Zimmerman only remembered that the student was recommended by his aunt, an
entomologist, who worked at the same institute in 1924-1926, It took me several years
before I met Irene Dobroscky, who told me that her nephew, who helped Zimmerman,
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, became a world-famous virologist. When I met Gajdusek in
1970, I greeted him as "the discoverer of 2,4-D", but he thought that I confused him with
someone else. When I reminded him of his summer job in Yonkers, he requested that I
send him the names of the scientists who worked there in 1939. We became close friends
.In 1976, Gajdusek received the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for discovering
the infectious agent of kuru disease, that killed cannibals in the highlands of Papua New
Guinea. In his Nobel lecture he described how he synthesized 2,4-D, the world's first
weed killer. Gajdused called the agent of kuru a "slow virus. It resembles the causative
agents of Kreuzfeld-Jacob, scrapie of sheep, and mad cow diseases. In 1982 Stanley
Prusiner, working with scrapie of sheep, detected no DNA or RNA in the scrapie
pathogen, only novel proteinaceous infectious particles. He concluded that scrapie is
caused by a self-duplicating, twisted protein and he coined the word "prion" for
Gajdusek's "slow viruses"". In 1996 Prusiner won the Wolf Prize, and the following year
the Nobel Prize for his discovery of prions. Unknown to American scientists, a prominent
Canadian biochemist, Juda Hirsch Quastel, also synthesized 2,4-D , working during
World War II at the Rothamsted Exeperimental Station in Harpenden. The Agricultural
Research Council of Great Britain requested him to find compounds that would stimulate
plant growth. Quastel demonstrated the herbicidal properties of 2,4-D in 1942 in agar
tests and in the field. The findings were kept secret till the end of the war.
Keywords: viruses, prions, herbicides.
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irk-123456789-1568382019-06-20T01:26:19Z Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes Maramorosch, K. Abstracts 2012 Article Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes / K. Maramorosch // Вiopolymers and Cell. — 2012. — Т. 28, № 2, доп. — С. 21-22. — англ. 0233-7657 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/156838 en Вiopolymers and Cell Інститут молекулярної біології і генетики НАН України |
| institution |
Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
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DSpace DC |
| language |
English |
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Abstracts Abstracts |
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Abstracts Abstracts Maramorosch, K. Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes Вiopolymers and Cell |
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Maramorosch, K. |
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Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes |
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Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes |
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Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes |
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Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes |
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keynote speaker from weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and nobel prizes |
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Інститут молекулярної біології і генетики НАН України |
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2012 |
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Abstracts |
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http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/156838 |
| citation_txt |
Keynote Speaker From weed killers and cannibals to viruses, prions, and Nobel prizes / K. Maramorosch // Вiopolymers and Cell. — 2012. — Т. 28, № 2, доп. — С. 21-22. — англ. |
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Вiopolymers and Cell |
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