Word: molecular
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba, a right-wing organization composed of high military figures, business executives, and noted academicians, has cited Mark Ptashne, professor of Molecular Biology at Harvard, as being one of many "influential dissidents" who have visited Cuba during the 1960's to learn ways of inciting revolution...
Biologist Meselson argues that over the next few decades molecular biology will probably unlock the few remaining scientific secrets of life. The new knowledge could make the destructive capacity of chemical and biological agents immensely more horrible than it is today. Meselson insists that it would be better to be out of the business altogether, so that no war planner or procurement officer could ever be led into temptation...
Deadly Message. Gallo's hypothesis tends to support the iconoclastic ideas of Howard Temin, a University of Wisconsin molecular biologist who long espoused what his colleagues considered a major heresy. According to accepted theory, the hereditary information in the chromosomes of all cells passes in the same direction. Double-stranded DNA molecules make single-stranded messenger RNA molecules, which then direct the production of proteins, the basic building blocks of every cell. Temin contended that the process is sometimes reversed: RNA, he insisted, could make DNA. Otherwise, he asked, how could cancer-causing viruses−which consist of bundles...
Last summer Temin and other molecular biologists produced strong experimental evidence that RNA viruses may indeed be capable of producing their own DNA (TIME, July 20). Columbia University's Sol Spiegelman confirmed it. He demonstrated how an enzyme, or natural chemical catalyst, can cause tumors in laboratory animals by a DNA-RNA reversal. As Temin had postulated, the enzyme turned out to be RNA-dependent DNA polymerase. But a question remained: Was the same enzyme also present in human cancer...
...cell shape is caused by an abnormal bonding between hemoglobin molecules in the red cells. Using this knowledge, Nalbandian's team decided to try urea, a waste substance produced by the normal human liver and excreted in the urine. As they knew, urea can dissolve certain types of molecular bonds. Their experiment worked: urea broke the bond between the hemoglobin molecules, halted the sickling effect, and relieved the victims' pain...