Word: nitrogenous
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cancer in 1939, when he joined Manhattan's Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases. The next year he became its director. Then, for the duration, Dr. Rhoads was preoccupied with wartime problems-blood procurement, gas casualties and atom-bomb casualties. There were no gas casualties, but nitrogen mustard and related poisons, unused in war, eased the symptoms and prolonged the lives of some cancer patients. "Dusty" Rhoads revived the idea, then out of medical fashion, that drugs might yet be found to treat and even cure cancer...
...transition came in World War. II with nitrogen mustard-synthesized for use as a poison gas. Cancer researchers began testing it. found that it killed cells in rough proportion to their rate of reproduction. Though it killed the cancer cells faster than the normal, it was still highly poisonous, could be given (by intravenous injection) only in small doses. And eventually the cancer cells became resistant to it. History has sadly repeated itself with scores of chemicals of this class (technically "alkylating agents") developed since. About 20 are credited with definite but limited usefulness...
Small Advantage. The company is also well on its way in commercial production of other "cold liquids." It is building a $6,000,000 facility for liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen and liquid argon, has teamed up with Northern Natural Gas Co. to form the Helex Co., which will produce helium for missile development and atomic energy...
...mechanism of radiation damage is still little understood. In experiments, Dr. Baldwin irradiated a bug sealed inside a chamber containing nitrogen. The oxygen deficiency slowed the bug's cell division, and when it molted, the bug showed two to three times less radiation damage than bugs that were irradiated in normal air. Dr. Baldwin concluded that oxygen deficiency improved radiation resistance. Since cells in humans are continually dividing, man may never hope to achieve an insect's resistance. But Dr. Baldwin is hopeful that the study of his kissing bugs will lead to basic knowledge of how radiation...
...doctors have ruled out further surgery. Radiation therapy is scheduled to start this week. If that does not control the cancer, medical experts say a variety of other treatments could be tried--drugs derived from nitrogen mustard gas or perhaps injections of radiotive gold...