Word: rna
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...harmless form of nucleic acid might stimulate the increased production they were seeking. They tested helenine, extracted from a mold related to those that make penicillin and already known to have antiviral properties (though no one then knew why). Extraordinarily complex extraction procedures yielded a pure ribonucleic acid (RNA). But this was no ordinary RNA, such as occurs in the cores of many viruses in molecules of single strands. This proved to be a double-stranded form. The lab team called it Hel-RNA...
When the researchers injected Hel-RNA into mice and then gave the animals a second injection of a normally fatal dose of an encephalitis virus, 73% of the animals survived, as against only 3% of unprotected mice. The score was still better when the RNA preparation was put into the animals' noses and they were exposed to a pneumonia virus: 90% survived, whereas every one of the unprotected comparison group of mice died...
Promising Prospects. The Merck virologists tried other kinds of nucleic acid: single-stranded RNA, doublestranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and substances containing proteins. None worked. Then they took two groups of nucleic acid components. Alone, neither of these had worked, but when they were combined in what turned out to be a multi-stranded RNA, the protective effect for infected mice was about the same as that conferred by HeL-RNA...
...believes that even though the guilty viruses escape, he can get the evidence to convict them because they leave biochemical fingerprints. In hamster tumors that he provoked with a known virus, Dr. Green told an American Cancer Society seminar, he found large amounts of an abnormal, new form of RNA, one of the two principal nucleic acids. Now he is looking for similar fingerprints in human cancers...
Hyland's Hörna is Swedish TV's weekly family funfest, attracting about 40% of the nation's 7.8 million population to its low-key grab bag of chatter, mystery guests, songs and good cheer...