Summer Session Kansan Page 5
Single Cell Study Begins On March of Dimes Grant
Commenting on the award, Dr. Virginia Apgar, the Foundation's director of congenital defects research, said, the question of differentiation—how myriads of different cells and tissues that compose a new-born baby are derived from the original single cell, the fertilized ovum—is basic to our understanding of what makes for a normal or abnormal child. Yet we know very little about the mechanisms underlying it.
One of the least understood problems of life—how a baby develops from a single cell, the fertilized egg, during a 9-month stay in the mother's womb—is the basic problem behind a study on chick embryos to be undertaken at KU with a new grant of $40,082 from The National Foundation, March of Dimes.
There is no mystery in one cell multiplying to a trillion. Bacteria do it all the time. A baby, however, not only has trillions of cells made up of hundreds of different kinds, but these cells are arranged in an incredibly complex way to form a recognizable, living entity—the baby. For us, growth is not multiplication; it is differentiated development, and it goes on after birth, too.
Announcement of the grant was made jointly last week by Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe and Basil O'Connor, president of The National Foundation. The project will be directed by Byron S. Wenger, associate professor of anatomy.
THE NEW GRANT to KU, Dr. Apgar pointed out, is one of a number of such grants made with March of Dimes funds to search into the processes, still largely unknown, of differentiation and development. The Foundation's long range concern is with abnormal development, or birth defects.
Specifically the KU investigators will attempt to find a chemical or chemicals possibly involved in a process of embryonic differentiation known as induction.
It has been known for 50 years that in the early stages of embryonic development certain tissues have to capacity to "induce" a neighboring, undifferentiated tissue to develop into a differentiated organ. Thus in a frog or chick embryo, for example, the tissue known as optic vesicle which later forms the greater part of the eye, will induce a contiguous tissue to form the lens. If the vesicle were not there, the lens would not form. If the vesicle were grafted to another part of the body, say, the belly, a lens would be induced from belly skin.
Tuesday, July 3, 1962
Executive Program In Final Week
Four telephone executives are at Kansas University today and tomorrow visiting the KU School of Business' executive development program which is in its final week.
They are: Bill Bowden, American Telephone and Telegraph in New York; Cecil Young, Northwestern Bell Telephone, Omaha, Neb.; Harry Snell, Southwestern Bell of Topeka, and Marvin Davidson, of Southwestern Bell Telephone in St. Louis.
The goal of the four-week program has been to broaden the horizons of business executives through concentrated study and close working association with men of various backgrounds of executive experience.
The topics for study have included policy administration, American business climate, human relations in business administration and financial administration, and management accounting.
There will be a commencement ceremony Thursday noon at the KU Student Union. Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe will present the certificates and deliver an address.
THE EFFECT of a wide variety of nucleotides on tissue differentiation will be tested by placing these on the spinal cord or nearby areas of chick embryos. The experiments which show interesting results will be repeated using radioactively labelled nucleotides. This would more accurately indicate whether the nucleotides actually enter the reacting tissue in the course of the inductive process.
Prof. Wenger and his associates will explore the possibility that the inducing material is one of a large and important group of substances known as nucleotides. Nucleotides also are the building blocks of nucleic acids, the genetic material of life.
How this is done is not known. Presumably there is an organizing substance that passes from the inducing tissue to the receiving tissue and causes the latter to differentiate into a specific organ.
"To pinpoint the chemical nature of the inducing substance is the first and difficult step in understanding how induction occurs." Dr. Apgar said. "And to understand induction is perhaps the most promising approach to understanding the nature of tissue differentiation which is the most challenging task now facing biology and medicine.
"Birth defects are results of abnormal differentiation. The National
Foundation is vitally concerned in the efforts of scientists to come to grips with the basic forces that shape the development, normal or abnormal, of the human body.
Members of Prof. Wenger's research team will be Marjorie Z. Newmark, research associate; and Stephen G. Perry, 1533 8th Ave., East Moline, Ill., and Mrs. Gwendolyn Turner, 1725 Ohio, Lawrence, graduate students in anatomy.
Cmdr. Lewis has served $21\frac{1}{2}$ years in the navy and before coming to KU he was on the Joint U.S. Military Aid Group at Athens, Greece, and was chief technical officer and technical adviser to the Royal Hellenic Navy. He also has served on destroyers in both the Pacific and the Atlantic.
"Our grant to support Prof. Wenger's basic research is a reflection of this concern."
A noon luncheon was held in the Kansas Union Friday to honor the retirement of Cmdr. F. A. Lewis, executive officer and associate professor of naval science here since Aug. 23, 1958.
Officer Honored At Noon Luncheon
A teacher in the University of Kansas School of Medicine since 1951, Prof. Wenger will remain on the Lawrence campus in the new department of comparative biochemistry and physiology when the medical school is consolidated in Kansas City in September.
His doctoral studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., were in experimental embryology. For two years he held a U.S. Public Health Service postdoctoral fellowship there in ultramicrochemical techniques, which are necessary for study of the biochemistry of the minute amounts of tissues available in a small embryo.
His decorations include the Commendation Medal, Purple Heart and Navy Unit Commendation. He has received the following campaign medals: American Defense, European-Middle Eastern Campaign, Asiatic-Pacific Area Campaign with nine stars, American Area Campaign, World War II Victory Medal, Navy Occupation Service Medal and Philippine Liberation with two stars.
Only Cool Ambulance For Me
Crushed Ice Ice Cold 6-pacs of all kinds PARTY SUPPLIES
Having a Party?
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — An ambulance rushed to a shopping center recently where a woman had fainted in 90-degree heat.
LAWRENCE ICE CO.
6th & Vt., VI 3-0350
Having a July 4th PICNIC?
Let us do the work for you. JUST PHONE VI 3-8225
The prostrate woman opened her eyes and asked if the ambulance was air-conditioned. When told it wasn't, she dismissed the drivers with instructions to call "one of those private, air-conditioned ones."
BIG BUY
23rd & Iowa
A large selection of greeting cards gift wrapping and party needs
For Complete Photo Needs Come to PHOTON
Photon Cameras, Inc. 1107 Mass.
Patronize Your Kansan Advertisers
SALE
WOMEN'S FLATS
CAPEZIO—were to 11.95
OLD MAINE TROTTERS—were to 10.95
TOWN & COUNTRY—were to 10.95
690
SCOOTERS—were to 7.95
WOMEN'S FLATS...
CARRIAGE TRADE—were to 8.95
VINERS----were to 8.95
590
WOMEN'S LOAFERS
OLD MAINE TROTTERS—were to 10.95
TRAMPEZE—were to 8.95
VINERS----were to 7.95
Royal College
490
Shop
837 Mass.
Entire Stock Not Included Sorry, No Mail Orders, Exchanges or Refunds.