Drive-by Posting: Tales of Mad Science: Blood and Alcohol
Inspired by lederhosen's recent note, and in the same vein as the older tale of mine Tales of Mad Science: Paddles and Barrels, a story from Grand Rounds here at Wash U...
The visiting speaker was relating a story from his early days, in the landmark hunt for what ultimately would become the discovery of one of the first inflammatory proteins. His work would open up our understanding of how everything from asthma to arthritis works, and why our current drugs help -- or don't. But the specific story involved blood, alcohol, and a pair of humorless gentleman with badges and guns...
Unsurprisingly, extremely delicate molecular biology experiments demand absolutely pure ethanol. While industrial ethanol is routinely "denatured" with trace amounts of poisons, such as methanol, to discourage the recreational use of that ethanol; the same poisons which would screw up would-be abusers also screw up would-be biochemical reactions. (After all, many of the same biochemical reactions we're trying to study are the same ones screwed up *in* the would-be laboratory party animal.) Twenty years into the molecular biology revolution, today the hundreds or thousands of molecular biologists at any given major research center routinely churn through countless thousands of liters of pure ethanol (along with vast amounts of deadly neurotoxins, radioactives, and the occasional BioSafety Level III or even IV virus.)
But nearly forty years ago, when the speaker began his career, molecular biology was in it's infancy. Molecular biology as a field barely even existed. Even DNA itself was a relatively new discovery. And so, when his research group began the extremely delicate series of extractions necessary to try to isolate the inflammatory protein at the heart of their work, their consumption of pure, unadulterated alcohol was much more noticable. In fact, their lab singlehandedly drove their august institution's consumption of pure ethanol up from a few liters a month to tens of liters a *week*. Needless to say, this raised a few eyebrows, most notably at tht Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. And so it was one morning that two humorless agents in leisure green suits arrived unannounced at their laboratory doorstep, there to sniff out the truth of the matter.
The scientists invited the agents to observe the process of isolating the protein. It was immediately obvious where all the alcohol was going, as liters were poured and mixed and separated through the extraction process. But the agents also got a front-seat view of where the stuff being extracted was coming *from*. Remember, this was in the very earliest days of the molecular biology revolution. This was so far into the pre-dawn of the molecular biology revolution that you needed night-vision goggles to get around. Scientists then didn't know how to engineer bacteria or yeasts to make proteins on command. They didn't have the ability to grow cells reliably in dishes yet. Basically, in those primative days, the only way to make mouse proteins was to harvest those proteins from whole mice. We will, out of mercy for my readership, spare the details. But, considering the size of your average mouse, it should be immediately obvious that any experiment that starts with *liters* of mouse fluid is going to be, ah, messy.
The ATF agents soon turned as green as their leisure suits. And quickly concluded their investigation and left. :-)
So not to leave my readership with the mental image of mouse juice, another story from Wash U...
The St. Louis Zoo is one of the nation's most famous. And a number of years ago, a baby seal was born at the zoo. Unfortunately, the baby seal became ill. The zookeepers then faced a quandry; how could the baby seal be fed, warmed, monitored, and medicated, given that it's small size demanded a whole set of baby-sized equipment not typically used in the care of adult animals?
As it happens, one place to find large amounts of baby-sized medical equipment is at a baby hospital, and we happen to have a pretty good baby hospital at Wash U. A baby seal is a mammal just like us, after all, has at least roughly the same physiology, and at least early in it's life has the same rough dimentions as a baby human. And so the sick little baby seal was carefully lifted on a stretcher into an ambulance and brought to St. Louis Children's, where it was put into a human baby warmer bed, hooked to human baby IV lines, and gently nursed back to health.
We take care of a lot of cute patients. But I think having a baby seal on your pediatric ward service would win the award for Cutest Patient Ever... :-)