Evening star., 1936-11-28

A chemical development which may be
prophetic of eventual synthetic foods,
made up entirely of inorganic materials,
has just been announced at the Ameri-
can Chemical Society's headquarters
here.
The development. described in the So
ciety's journal, Industrial and Engineer
ing Chemistry, is a new synthetic resin
produced by the action Of zinc chloride
on the molecule of the resin produced
by combination Of urea and formalde-
hyde. 1t Is the accomplishment of DR..
T. w. Dixie, Seattle chemist
The idea of building up an actual
food substance out of inorganic ma
terials in the aboratory-something that
would contain in digestible form all the
elements necessary for lifelong has
intrigued chemists, but has seemed es-
sentially hopeless. Now, says the Amer
lean Chemical Society's announcement.
Henry Ford's idea of synthetic COW
may not have been so much a wild
dream as q sane prophecy"
The new class of resins produced by
Dr. Dixie are not in themselves synthetic
foods. but constitute juggling Of mole
cules in that direction. He says:
These synthetic resins, with their
strange colloidal properties and ability
to polymerize-form ompounds-exten-
sively may at present be confined to
humble uSes such as adheSives and plas-
tics. but they suggest ultimate advances
to simple amino acids or even proteins.
The ease with which zinc chloride enters
the urea a-formaldehyde resin molecule
and the profound notifications of prop
critics that result suggest interesting
speculations as to results if some other
radicals, such as phosphorus, which are
present in proteinS, were also introduced.
The urea-formadehyde complex has
great possibilities for substitution and
may provide base upon which synthetic
foods can be constructed"
An actual synthesis of a protein still
is far in the future. All proteinS are
made I'D and enormous molecules con-
tanning thousands Of atoms of carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen. nitrogen, sulphur,
phosphorus and iron in various quanti-
ties and almost infinitely complex ar
rangements. Some foods, such as egg
white and raw meat, are almost entirely
protein.
The proteins are broken up by the
processes Of digestion into SO-called
amino acids which can be absorbed in
the blood. About 80 of these acids are
known. Their molecules are much
smaller and simpler than those of the
proteins from which they are derived
containing between 10 and 20 atoms of
carbon, hydrogen. nitrogen and the
other protein constituents.
Before one can conceive of syn
thetic protein there must first be
synthetic amino acid. From this it
might be possible to build up to the nm
ished food. DR.. Dike's synthetic resin
molecule approaches that of some Of the
simpler amino acids.
Until 1928 it was generally held that
the organic and the inorganic worlds
were separate and diStinct-that man
never could hope to duplicate the chem
ical products which were associated with
the life process. In that year the Ger
man chemist Wohler made q chance dis
coyery that revolutionized some OF the
basic concepts Of science. He synthesized
urea, an organic product, out Of inor-
ganic materials.
Thus he disproved the ancient hypoth-
esis that substances derived from life
processes could be made from life
processes only. For the first time man
was in . position to supplement the
products of nature with those of hts own
creation. The synthst1 urea itself was