Evening star., 1940-04-12
Scientists Produce
Basis Of Hormones
Essential 10 Life
Making Of New Steroid
Brings Synthesis Of
Life's Elements Closer
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Stan Correspondent.


CINCINNATI, April 12-Making
new keystones of life out Of coal,
water and limestone was reported
here today by four Department of
Agriculture chemists.
The achievement described to the
American Chemical Society by Drs.
Lewis w. Butts, Adam M. Gaddis,
Eleanore w. j. Butz and Russell E.
Davis of the Bureau of Animal In
dustry laboratories at Beltsville,
Md, greatly improves the prospect
of making in the laboratory hor-
mones essential for survival and re-
production of animals and men.
They have produced, they said. a
new steroid Of the same pattern
used by nature in designing the
mechanism of life. A steroid is
combination Of II carbon atoms ar
ranged in four rings. Upon these
rings a large number of other active
chemical elements, constructed by
ANIMALS and plants from the foods
they eat, can be hung.
The supply of steroids is very
limited because in the past it has
been necessary to extract all of them
from plants and animal products.
They occur in nature in very small
quantities and are extracted only
with great difficulty.
Chief Difficulty Averted.
Some steroids, about 20 in all, have
previously been synthesized in the
laboratory. AL, however, have had
one feature in common. At least
one of the rings of the carbon skele-
ton has been a benzene ring, the
simplest and most fundamental Of
the basic structures Of hyndro-
carbons found in coal, petroleum,
etc. But of the more than 100
steroids which have been found in
animals and plants, less than 10
contain benzene rings, and steroids
necessary as starting points for syn
thesizing the life-essential hormone
cannot easily be made from the
benzenoid type.
The new steroid produced at
Beltsville does not have benzene
rings and is of the type which ap-
pears to predominant in nature. It
differs in many respects from the
actual animal hormone steroids
which have been extracted but may
serve as a convenient starting point
for their synthesis.
From the same starting point, the
chemists point out, it may be pos
sible to synthesize substances close
ly related to some Of the cancer-pro-
ducing coal tar products which will
be of value in fundamental re-
search.
Food Preservative Produced.
Production of an essential food
preservative at a fraction of its
present cost by fermenting corn
sugar with bacteria was reported by
five other Department of Agricul-
ture chemists. Drs. j. J. Stubbs, L.
B. Lockwood, E. T. Roe, B. Taben-
kin and G. E. Ward of Washington
reported that they had been able to
produce iso-vitamin c, essential for
preserving dried whole milk or egg
yolks, mayonnaise and olive oil
emulsions. This substance is closely
related to the vitamin c necessary
in the diet to prevent scurvy but has
only one-twentieth as much bio
logical activity.
While it has been known for some
time that 1t could be produced from
corn sugar by bacterial fermenta-
ton, the reaction required 80 to 60
days. BY using the new bacteria it
is possible to do this in "a hours.
The method may make possible ex-
tended use of dried whole milk and
eggs for famine relief, should this
become essential as a result of the
present war.
New Source of Vegetable Oil.
A new source of vegetable oil to
be used in foods was reported by
Drs. Lawrence Oncley, Dean Couch
and Charles Elliott of Southwestern
College, Winfield, Kans. This source
is the Kentucky coffee bean tree,
widely distributed from New York to
Kansas. It is not, however, q COM
mon tree. From its seeds they have
obtained greenish-yellow oil which
contains the essential vitamin A,
and promises to have a wide use in
food preparations.
Production of a more active frac-
ton of the yellow marrow from
bones which is the source of the bac-
teria-eating white blood cells was
reported by Drs. j. D. Porsche, r. H.
Sifferd, ]. E. Caldwell and Fred
erick Fenger Of Chicago. This is
essential in the treatment Of the
disease known as agranulocytosis, q
highly fatal human disease, in which
the white cell-making mechanism
appears to stop functioning.
q