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1973 in science |
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The year 1973 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Heme, or haem, is a ring-shaped iron-containing molecular component of hemoglobin, which is necessary to bind oxygen in the bloodstream. It is composed of four pyrrole rings with 2 vinyl and 2 propionic acid side chains. Heme is biosynthesized in both the bone marrow and the liver.
The enzyme ornithine decarboxylase catalyzes the decarboxylation of ornithine to form putrescine. This reaction is the committed step in polyamine synthesis. In humans, this protein has 461 amino acids and forms a homodimer.
Neomycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic that displays bactericidal activity against Gram-negative aerobic bacilli and some anaerobic bacilli where resistance has not yet arisen. It is generally not effective against Gram-positive bacilli and anaerobic Gram-negative bacilli. Neomycin comes in oral and topical formulations, including creams, ointments, and eyedrops. Neomycin belongs to the aminoglycoside class of antibiotics that contain two or more amino sugars connected by glycosidic bonds.
A monoclonal antibody is an antibody produced from a cell lineage made by cloning a unique white blood cell. All subsequent antibodies derived this way trace back to a unique parent cell.
In neuroscience, long-term potentiation (LTP) is a persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity. These are patterns of synaptic activity that produce a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons. The opposite of LTP is long-term depression, which produces a long-lasting decrease in synaptic strength.
The Rosenhan experiment or Thud experiment was an experiment claimed to have been conducted to determine the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. Participants supposedly submitted themselves for evaluation at various psychiatric institutions and feigned hallucinations in order to be accepted, but acted normally from then onward. Each was diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and were given antipsychotic medication. The study was claimed to have been conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 under the title "On Being Sane in Insane Places".
Hydroxycarbamide, also known as hydroxyurea, is a medication used in sickle-cell disease, essential thrombocythemia, chronic myelogenous leukemia, polycythemia vera, and cervical cancer. In sickle-cell disease it increases fetal hemoglobin and decreases the number of attacks. It is taken by mouth.
Hermann Emil Louis Fischer was a German chemist and 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He discovered the Fischer esterification. He also developed the Fischer projection, a symbolic way of drawing asymmetric carbon atoms. He also hypothesized lock and key mechanism of enzyme action. He never used his first given name, and was known throughout his life simply as Emil Fischer.
Gemcitabine, sold under the brand name Gemzar, among others, is a chemotherapy medication used to treat cancers. It is used to treat testicular cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and bladder cancer. It is administered by intravenous infusion. It acts against neoplastic growth, and it inhibits the replication of Orthohepevirus A, the causative agent of Hepatitis E, through upregulation of interferon signaling.
David L. Rosenhan was an American psychologist. He is best known for the Rosenhan experiment, a study challenging the validity of psychiatry diagnoses.
DNA polymerase II is a prokaryotic DNA-dependent DNA polymerase encoded by the PolB gene.
Macromerine is a phenethylamine derivative. It was first identified from the cactus Coryphantha macromeris. It can also be found in C. runyonii, C. elephantidens, and other related members of the family Cactaceae.
Sodium phenylbutyrate, sold under the brand name Buphenyl among others, is a salt of an aromatic fatty acid, 4-phenylbutyrate (4-PBA) or 4-phenylbutyric acid. The compound is used to treat urea cycle disorders, because its metabolites offer an alternative pathway to the urea cycle to allow excretion of excess nitrogen.
Levomefolic acid (INN, also known as L-5-MTHF, L-methylfolate and L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate and (6S)-5-methyltetrahydrofolate, and (6S)-5-MTHF) is the primary biologically active form of folate used at the cellular level for DNA reproduction, the cysteine cycle and the regulation of homocysteine. It is also the form found in circulation and transported across membranes into tissues and across the blood–brain barrier. In the cell, L-methylfolate is used in the methylation of homocysteine to form methionine and tetrahydrofolate (THF). THF is the immediate acceptor of one carbon unit for the synthesis of thymidine-DNA, purines (RNA and DNA) and methionine. The un-methylated form, folic acid (vitamin B9), is a synthetic form of folate, and must undergo enzymatic reduction by dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) to become biologically active.
The liver receptor homolog-1 (LRH-1) also known as totipotency pioneer factor NR5A2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NR5A2 gene. LRH-1 is a member of the nuclear receptor family of intracellular transcription factors.
Ralph Marvin Steinman was a Canadian physician and medical researcher at Rockefeller University, who in 1973 discovered and named dendritic cells while working as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Zanvil A. Cohn, also at Rockefeller University. Steinman was one of the recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Protein lyl-1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the LYL1 gene.
Jerrold Schwaber was an American biologist and geneticist. In 1973 he described, with Edward Cohen, a method of producing antibodies involving human–mouse hybrid cells, or hybridomas. They fused "mouse myeloma cells secreting immunoglobulin of known specificity and human peripheral blood lymphocytes not secreting detectable immunoglobulin. The hybrid cells continued secretion of mouse immunoglobulin and initiate synthesis and secretion of human immunoglobulin." The antibody producing cells did not survive long and the antigens that the antibodies targeted remained unknown. In 1975, Georges Köhler, César Milstein, and Niels Kaj Jerne, succeeded in making hybridomas that made antibodies to known antigens and that were immortalized. They shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 for the discovery. His work in laying the foundation for modern monoclonal antibody technology is recognized.
David Ruchien Liu is an American molecular biologist and chemist. He is the Richard Merkin Professor, Director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, and Vice-Chair of the Faculty at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University; and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.