Inter-Cellular Hormone

For ten years Dr. George Speri Sperti and his associates in Cincinnati have been studying the effects on yeast cells and other organic material of ultraviolet radiation obin the short, lethal wave lengths. It was noticed that when some cells were injured by radiation, the life processes of uninjured cells were stimulated. The Cincinnati researchers radiated some yeast cells long enough to kill them all, then took the fluid containing the cell corpses, centrifuged and filtered it, added it to a suspension of normal cells. The "respiration" (oxygen intake) of these was observed to increase by 10%. It appeared that before they died the damaged cells secreted stimulating fluids which Dr. Sperti now calls "intercellular hormones."

Injury by heat, X-rays or mechanical means also caused the hormones to be released, and they were obtained not only from yeast cells but from liver, kidney, embryo and other tissues. Dr. Sperti therefore decided that he had come upon a general phenomenon associated with cell injury. Since one effect of the hormone was to multiply cells rapidly, it seemed possible that unknown hormones of the same type might be the cause of the unhealthy cell proliferation which constitutes cancer. But since the fluid from radiated yeast brought about normal, not abnormal cell proliferation, the prospect arose of using it to heal human hurts.

At Cincinnati's St. Mary Hospital for the past year the fluid has been used to treat burns. To the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Indianapolis last week Dr. Sperti declared that the. results have been remarkable. Ugly burns have healed quickly, with smooth, normal skin over the burned area instead of puckered scar tissue.

George Speri Sperti, 37, is a devout Catholic, one of six U. S. members of Pope Pius' Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He used to be a laboratory director at the University of Cincinnati. When the Archdiocese of Cincinnati established the Institutum Divi Thomae as part of the Ohio Athenaeum (collection of Catholic schools), Biochemist Sperti became a full professor there. Atheistic scientists are not admitted to the Institutum Divi Thomae "because they cannot think straight."

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