Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-02-12
Tests Revive Life
From Extreme Cold
Living Cells Turn to Glass
After Exposure to 200 c.

6NHHS SSiIS uTH 10 6IQSS
After Exposure to 200 c.
BY Thomas R. Henry
Living things are coming back alive
out OF the lifeleSsness of extreme cold
around 200 centigrade.
After an indefinite period of sus-
pended animation in which the water
which forms part of every living cell
is solidified into glasslike material,
not ice, they can be revived.
Theoretically, they should be none
the worse for the experience, but prac-
tically this goal has not been quite
achieved. DR.. Basile j. Luyet of st.
Louis University and his colleagues
who have been working on the TECH
nique for almost 20 years may be on
the verge of it with improvements just
reported to the Botanical Society of
America.
The possibility of termination after
extreme freezing still is confined to
very minute organisms and bits of
tissue culture The greatest success
achieved was with the single-celled
mycetozoa, form of amoeba The st.
Louis University investigators previous
ly had been successful with vinegar
worms, bits of chicken embryonic tis-
sue, and muscle fiber, on the animal
side of life
Among plants the success now re-
ported has oeen even more pro-
nounced. The investigators have OBJ
tanned growth in wheat and pea seed
lings. These were allowed to terminate
fer "a hours before freezing. After re-
vival they we're planted in laboratory
culture medium and grew to become
three or four times the size of the origi-
nal seedlings. 1t was impossible, how
ever. to secure full-grown plants.
Actual Life Experiments.
Major significance of the present
work is that it has been carried out
with whole organisms with all the
Infinitely complicated physiological
processes possessed by any living thing.
The major change from previous tech
niqueS was soaking in ethylene glycol,
similar to many commercial anti-freeze
solutions, before the rapid freezing in
liquid air.
The technique requires that the ami
NAL or plant be taken very rapidly
through the range of temperature at
which ice is formed Water expands
and forms into solid crystals when it
becomes ice These crystals diStort
the walls of cells and cause death by
freezing
Below the ice stage, however water
changes into glass" There is no ex-
pansion and no physical damage to a
cell. Life processes are not stopped
but-in theory at least-only indefi-
nitely suspended.
There still is far to 60 however be-
fore the method can be applied success
fully to any higher multicelled animals
or multicelled plants beyond the
embryo stage.
Tubercle bacilli which become highly
resistant to the new tuberculosis drug.
lSoniazid. also lose much of their
ability to cause the disease.
This finding, based on tests with
experimental animals, has just been
reported to the American Association
for the Advancement of Science here
by Drs. Gardner Mddlebrook and
Maurice l.. Cohn of the University of
Colorado Medical School 1t may have
important implications for the future
plague"
Isoniazid, first introduced about three
years ago, has proved a potent killer
of tuberculosis germs but, like the
highly promising antibiotic strepto-
mycin has proved to have one great
weakness. Large numbers of the bugs"
soon develop resistance 10 it, and this
resistance is hereditary. The result is
the development of races of tough
bacilh
Dual Effect.
But. the Colorado doctors report. the
development of this resistance is, in
almost every case. coupled with a
development of a much lower capacity
to cause disease. This, so far as known,
was not the case with streptomycin-
resistant strains of the same organism.
Apparently the new organisms. how
ever, grow as rapidly as the old.
The investigators stress that their
observations apply only to tests with
guinea pigs. They have had no oppor-
tunity to study the effects of the new
organisms on humans.
Apparently the tubercle bacillus is
not very stable organization from the
standpoint of heredlty and initiates
easily into new strains in response to
its environment
There is no assurance it is stressed
in the report. that the new nom
pathogenic bugs may not undergo
other mutations which will make them
Vrulent again.
One of the implications. according to
the report, is that the present mutants
have a special growth requirement for
some substance which is not found in
normal lung tissue