Word: properdin
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...week later took blood and tissue specimens from the animals. Fresh pieces of cancer tissue were immersed in this material, then transplanted into pretreated rats. These implants failed to grow. The cancer had been neutralized by an immune mechanism in the blood of the first, untreated rats. ¶ Properdin, a chemical that occurs naturally in the blood, is one of the factors in immunity. Zymosan. a yeast product, raises the properdin level if given in small doses, but bigger doses make it fall sharply. Dr. William T. Bradner reported that after small shots of zymosan, 67% of transplanted cancers...
...researchers at Cleveland's Western Reserve University make no hard claim to have found the final solution to the puzzle. They have isolated, from the blood serum of both man and animals, a protein that destroys bacteria and neutralizes viruses. Because of its powers, they have named it properdin (from the Latin perdere, to destroy). While the antibody proteins that the system develops after some diseases or inoculations (e.g., polio, diphtheria) are useful only against the organisms that cause the particular disease, properdin is not choosy: it destroys or neutralizes an extremely wide range of bacteria and viruses. Perhaps...
...that the researchers have the stuff (still only in minute quantities), the question is what they can do with it. At the American Cyanamid Co.'s Lederle Laboratories, processes for extracting properdin in bulk are being perfected. Then medical men will try to find out whether man's natural immunity to all infectious disease, or to an immediately threatening attack, can be boosted by shooting more properdin into his veins...
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