- Email: [email protected]
Nucleate research in Toronto
N I24
TIBS
-
June
1970
Nucleate research in Toronto
Lipmann honoured throughout the world As well as the Nobel Prize. Fritz Lipmann has bucn presented with many other awards. In 1Y66 Prcsidcnt Johnson B. G. prcscntcd him h+ith the Medal of Science. the highest a\vard for scientific achieveHistory &ehrutes the battlefields ment in the Unite 1 States ‘for original whereon we meet our death, but xorns to discovcrics of molecular mechanisms . . speak of the plowed fields whereby WY and for fundamental contributions to the thrive; it knows the names of the king’s conceptual structure ot modern biochemistry’. tarlicr in his carter, in bastards, but c,annot tell us the origin of 1948 hc rcccivcd the Mead Johnson Illheat. This is the way of human folly. award ior outstanding uork on the J. Henri Fabre [I ] vitamin B complex and the Carl Ncubcrg Medal. Hc has received honorary dcgrces Much of what has been recently from the University of Paris. Harvard published about DNA research in the University. University of Chicago. Albert 1950s seems to be directed toward tinstcin College of Medicine. Brandcis riveting our attention to the dark side of University. Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Universit) of Copenhagen, the double helfii. Although often fascinatThe Rockefeller University. University of ing and too often disturbing. such Marseille and University of Santiago. In accounts of personal involvements and 1975 hc received the Ordcn Pour le intrigues have tended to obscure a Mdritc fiir Wisscnschaftcn und Kiinste significant body of DNA research which from President Walter Scheel of the was contemporaneous with discovery of Fcdcral Republic of Germany. Hc is a the double helix. At the present time when member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Deutsche Akadcmic der the IUB is preparing to convene in Toronto. it is fitting to recall at least a few Naturforscher Leopoldina, the American of the signal advances in DNA research Philosophical Society and the Harvey quietly emanated from the Society. a fcllo\+ of the Danish Royal which Biochemistry department at the UniverAcademy of Sciences and of the Neu York Academy of Sciences, and a foreign sity of Toronto during the 1950s. member of the Royal Society in London. Before he left in 1957, to assume a In I Y74, the annual Fritz Lipmann lccturc directorship of Atomic Energy of Canada, was established by the Gesellschaft fiir G. C. Butler’s co-ordinatcd program of Biologischc Chcmie at a symposium held rcscarch on DNA and histones had to celebrate his 75th birthday. This instituted an emphasis on nucleate symposium took place at the Max-Planck research which still persists in the lnstitut fiir Molekulare Genctik in department. Butler and his students made Berlin-Dahlem, only a stone’s throw aw’ay a great many far-reaching contributions to from the place where his career began. Fritz Lipmann, at the age of 80. shows the advancement of research on DNA and undiminished creativity and productivity. histones, and in this the year of his and recently has turned his interest to a retirement from a directorship of the field of research in which hc was uorking National Research Council of Canada, it at the beginning of his career in Fischer’s seems appropriate to recount some of laboratory, In particular he is interested in these pioneering contributions. changes in carbohydrate metabolism caused by Rous sarcoma virus-induced The work of Butler’s laboratory transformation of chicken fibroblasts. As the first of Butler’s students, D. B. Sir Hans Krebs wrote on the occasion of Smith performed the earliest reported Lipmann’s 75th birthdav: ‘the fruits of a measurements on DNA scientist’s labor are of several kinds. light-scattering [2]. The power of the light-scattering Promotion to a good post and a Nobel for determining molecular award are some; a very important one is technique the long-term response from students and weights of DNA specimens was manifest collaborators’. Certainly the old-timer of in this study and the results obtained biochemistry and molecular biology, Fritz presaged a new era in which it would be Lipmann, has reaped a rich harvest and the gratitude, loyalty and affection of his former students and colleagues rctlects of Biochemistry, the kind of human relationships many of B. G. Lane is at the Department Universify of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M5S IA8. us experienced in his laboratory. Because he arrived in G. C. Butler’s laboratory only On his 80th birthday. congratulations months before Butler left to assume a directorship of and good wishes from many friends, Atomic Energy of Canada, the writer did not co-workers and colleagues go to an participate in the investigations about which he writes outstanding scientist and a truly humanishere. Accordingly, this account is an appreciation, not a reminiscence. tic man.
Lane shown that the molecular weight of DNA was generally much greater than had been previously believed. In I95 1, Marko and Butler presented the first detailed account of the USC‘of the anionic detergent, SDS, for preparing DNA [3]. Almost immediately, this approach to the preparation of DNA took preccdencc over existing techniques. With some adjustments, but without major change, this technique was to become the standard method for preparing DNA during the next quarter century. It was also in 195 1 that Hurst and Butler communicated their preparation of monoesterasc-free snake venom phosphodiestcrase [4]. With this enzyme preparation, it was possible, for the first time. to effect quantitative conversion of DNA to its constituent 5’-deoxyribonucleotides. As a direct result of this development, the persistent doubts of all earlier research were soon erased as it became poslible to show that a 3’-5’ phosphodicster bridge is the exclusive internuclcotide linkage in both DNA and RNA, the latter-day discovery of the rare occurrence of terminal ‘cap’ structures in some species of RNA excepted. The accessibility of monoesterase-free preparations of snake venom phosphodiesterasc led Helleiner and Butler to make a more careful examination of the mode of action of the enzyme than had ever been possible before this time. By 1955, they had convincing evidence to show that the action of the enzyme was exo-nucleolytic. effecting removal of nucleotidc residues from the termini of deoxyribonuclcate chains [5]. This was the first indication that a nucleolytic enzyme could act in this ‘cxo’ manner and it set the stage for the work by Razzell and Khorana who showed that exonucleolysis takes place at 3’-hydroxyl termini in the cast of snake venom phosphodiestcrase. Although Levcne and his co-workers had characterized a sugar component of DNA as early as 1929, it is seldom appreciated that they had recovered 2-deoxy-D-ribose from a highly selected subfraction, mostly deoxyguanosine, which accounted for less than 1% of the mass of the DNA being analysed (see TIBS 4, Feb., 49 for an account of Levene’s work on 2-deoxy-D-ribose). It was not until 1956 that Walker and Butler reported the first full characterization of @,?ElsevlrriNorth-Holland
Biomedical Press 1979
TIBS
-
N 135
.ILUW I979
the sugar component in each of the deoxyribonucleosidcs from cellular DNA [6]. The sugar component of the pyrimidine dcoxyribonucleosides had never before been so adequately characterized. The quantitative features of this study allow cd the conclusion that 2-dcoxy-n-ribosc was quite likely to bc the sole sugar component in DNA. a conclusion which was far from trivial since it was soon found that ribose was not the only sugar component in RNA [7]. As one of Butler’s last students. J. M. Neelin performed the earliest gelelectrophoresis separations of the histones [8]: by using the same technique. Setterfield et al. [9] were soon able to show, for the first time. the extensive heterogeneity of the rihosomal proteins. The varied assortment of indcpendcnt investigations carried out by Butler and his students have had lasting impact on nucleate research: introduction of the light-scattering approach for measuring the molecular weights of DNA molecules; introduction of the ‘SDS method’ as a general procedure for preparing DNA; introduction of a method for effecting a quantitative conversion of DNA to its constituent S’-deoxyribonuclcotides; discovery that there arc enzymes which can degrade DNA by an ‘cxo’ action at the termini of polynuclcotidc chains; definitive characterization of 2-dcoxy-n-ribosc as the sole sugar component in DNA; introduction of the gel-electrophorcsis approach for separating nucleateassociated proteins. Current areas of investigation This multifaceted approach remains a cardinal characteristic of the nuclcatc research program in the Biochemistry department at the University of Toronto. No fewer than eleven members of staff have research interests which are closely if not exclusively allied with the study of nucleates. Areas of nucleate rcscarch which arc currently under investigation include: preparation of prnelastin mRNA from chick aortas and its cell-free translation (Anwar. R. A. and Krawctz. S., unpublished); X-ray crystallography of thymidine dinucleotide and the possible importance of the findings for undcrstanding the structure of polythymidylate [ 101; studies of damage and repair of DNA as they relate to carcinogens and carcinogenesis [l 11; studies of the regulated biosynthesis and assembly of RNA polymerase II through isolation of temperature-sensitive and (Yamanitin-resistant mutants of Chinese
hamster ovary cells [ 121; studies of the incorporation of extracellular DNA and proteins by cells of the Ehrlich ascitcs carcinoma [ 131; study of the possibility that base-pairing between SS rRNA and 18s rRNA may bc central to understanding the molecular basis of the attachment of large ribosomal subunits to smallsubunit initiation complexes [ 141; study of the structure of the eukaryotic chrvmosome with a view to how this might bc related to genecontrol [IS]; cell-free translation of the mRNA for brainspecific Sl00 protein with a view to defining its controlled expression, in viva [ 161; study of the controlled expression of ‘heat shock’ proteins in Drosophila rnelanogmtcr [ 171; studies of the conformation of DNA in prokaryotes and eukaryotcs with particular emphasis on the role of nicking-closing enzymes in removing super-helical coils in DNA molecules [ 181; stud& of the evolution of kinetic interactions between tRNA molecules and their cognate aminoacyltRNA ligases [ 191. References I Bullcr. A. H. R. (1YlY) E.wrys Macmillan Co. (N.Y.) 2 Smith, D. B. and Sheffer, H. (19.50) 2HB. 96-104
On
Wheat.
Marko. C’hcm. Hurst, Chm. Hcllciner. sity of Walker. Chcm. Smith, Biophyr.
Neclin.
Autr
3 I. 57X-575
J. M. and Conncll.
Bioylzyc.
AUN
G. t. ( I YSY) Rio< hurl.
3 I, 53Y-54
I
Y Sctterficld. G. E.. Ncclin. J. M.. Ncelin. Ii. M. and Bayley. S. T. ( I Y60) J. Mol. Biol. 2.4 16-124 10 Camcrman. N.. Fawcett, J. K. and C‘;tmcrman. A. ( 1076) J. ,Mol. Bid. 107. 60 l-62 I II Farber. I-... Parker. S. and Gruen~tcin. M. ( I Y76) C‘unc~er Rev.
36. 3870-3887
12 In&\. C. J.. Guialis. A.. Lam, .I. and Siminovitch, L. (I 976) J. Bid C’hwn. 25 I 272Y-2734 13 Kay. I:. R. M. (I Y66) Tmn?. N. Y. ./turd. .Sr i. 28. 726-740 I4 Azad. A. A. and Lane. B. G. (l’Y73) (‘NII ./. Rim&w. 5 I. 1669-l 672 IS Lewl\, P. N. (1077)
Can. J. Rcr.
A. M. and Butler. G. C. (I 05 I ) ./. Ri<~l. 190, I 65 176 R. 0. and Butler, G. C. (105 I) ./. R/r,l. 193. Y-Y6 C. W. (lY5S) Ph.D. The\i\ (UnivcrToronto) I. G. and Butler. G. C. (IY56) ( w. .I 34. I 168-l 175 J. D. and Dunn. D. B. (I Y5Y) R~rwl~irn.
Ac~nd.
1’) Wong. (U.S.A.)
Sci.
J. T.
(U.S.A.)
( 1976)
72.
Proc..
4280-42X4
NNI.
.4~ (I(/.
.Sr,i.
73. 2336-2340
Biotechnology - pulling the threads together What common interest would bring together workers from disciplines as far apart as biochemistry, food technology, mining and civil engineering. ‘Biotechnology’ is the short answer, and it is to aid the exchange of information between these and other groups of scientists and technologists that the European Federation of Biotechnology has been formed. The term ‘biotechnology’, which has been appearing with increasing regularity in science magazines and meeting agendas, can best be defined as the technical and applied aspects of resea’rch into biological materials and, in particular, into biological processing. In the words of W. R. Stanton of Kuala Lumpur the biotechnologist’s aim is to ‘bring engineering, biochemical and microbiological techniques together as elements of novel art, as distinct from mere refinements of ancient art.’ One of the most characteristic features of biotechnological studies is the extraordinary range of disciplines which need
to be combined to produce scientifically interesting and commercially valuable results. The biochemist, for example, may be studying microbial metabolism, enzymology or genetic engineering which could lead to the production of a more efficient yeast for fermentation. The chemical engineer will then need to find out the detailed process requirements, in terms of heat and mass transport, and the most efficient methods of recovering the product. Until September 1978 when the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) was formally constituted, Europe had no international organization which concerned itself exclusively with the problems of biotechnology. John Bu’lock, the (British) Biochemical Society’s representative at the EFB, emphasizes that the Federation aims to supplement and strengthen all those international and national organizations which include biotechnology as part of their m-ogrammes, rather than to compete with any @ Elsevicr/N~,rth-H,,lland
Biomedical Prcv
L47Y
TIBS
-
June
1970
Nucleate research in Toronto
Lipmann honoured throughout the world As well as the Nobel Prize. Fritz Lipmann has bucn presented with many other awards. In 1Y66 Prcsidcnt Johnson B. G. prcscntcd him h+ith the Medal of Science. the highest a\vard for scientific achieveHistory &ehrutes the battlefields ment in the Unite 1 States ‘for original whereon we meet our death, but xorns to discovcrics of molecular mechanisms . . speak of the plowed fields whereby WY and for fundamental contributions to the thrive; it knows the names of the king’s conceptual structure ot modern biochemistry’. tarlicr in his carter, in bastards, but c,annot tell us the origin of 1948 hc rcccivcd the Mead Johnson Illheat. This is the way of human folly. award ior outstanding uork on the J. Henri Fabre [I ] vitamin B complex and the Carl Ncubcrg Medal. Hc has received honorary dcgrces Much of what has been recently from the University of Paris. Harvard published about DNA research in the University. University of Chicago. Albert 1950s seems to be directed toward tinstcin College of Medicine. Brandcis riveting our attention to the dark side of University. Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Universit) of Copenhagen, the double helfii. Although often fascinatThe Rockefeller University. University of ing and too often disturbing. such Marseille and University of Santiago. In accounts of personal involvements and 1975 hc received the Ordcn Pour le intrigues have tended to obscure a Mdritc fiir Wisscnschaftcn und Kiinste significant body of DNA research which from President Walter Scheel of the was contemporaneous with discovery of Fcdcral Republic of Germany. Hc is a the double helix. At the present time when member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Deutsche Akadcmic der the IUB is preparing to convene in Toronto. it is fitting to recall at least a few Naturforscher Leopoldina, the American of the signal advances in DNA research Philosophical Society and the Harvey quietly emanated from the Society. a fcllo\+ of the Danish Royal which Biochemistry department at the UniverAcademy of Sciences and of the Neu York Academy of Sciences, and a foreign sity of Toronto during the 1950s. member of the Royal Society in London. Before he left in 1957, to assume a In I Y74, the annual Fritz Lipmann lccturc directorship of Atomic Energy of Canada, was established by the Gesellschaft fiir G. C. Butler’s co-ordinatcd program of Biologischc Chcmie at a symposium held rcscarch on DNA and histones had to celebrate his 75th birthday. This instituted an emphasis on nucleate symposium took place at the Max-Planck research which still persists in the lnstitut fiir Molekulare Genctik in department. Butler and his students made Berlin-Dahlem, only a stone’s throw aw’ay a great many far-reaching contributions to from the place where his career began. Fritz Lipmann, at the age of 80. shows the advancement of research on DNA and undiminished creativity and productivity. histones, and in this the year of his and recently has turned his interest to a retirement from a directorship of the field of research in which hc was uorking National Research Council of Canada, it at the beginning of his career in Fischer’s seems appropriate to recount some of laboratory, In particular he is interested in these pioneering contributions. changes in carbohydrate metabolism caused by Rous sarcoma virus-induced The work of Butler’s laboratory transformation of chicken fibroblasts. As the first of Butler’s students, D. B. Sir Hans Krebs wrote on the occasion of Smith performed the earliest reported Lipmann’s 75th birthdav: ‘the fruits of a measurements on DNA scientist’s labor are of several kinds. light-scattering [2]. The power of the light-scattering Promotion to a good post and a Nobel for determining molecular award are some; a very important one is technique the long-term response from students and weights of DNA specimens was manifest collaborators’. Certainly the old-timer of in this study and the results obtained biochemistry and molecular biology, Fritz presaged a new era in which it would be Lipmann, has reaped a rich harvest and the gratitude, loyalty and affection of his former students and colleagues rctlects of Biochemistry, the kind of human relationships many of B. G. Lane is at the Department Universify of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M5S IA8. us experienced in his laboratory. Because he arrived in G. C. Butler’s laboratory only On his 80th birthday. congratulations months before Butler left to assume a directorship of and good wishes from many friends, Atomic Energy of Canada, the writer did not co-workers and colleagues go to an participate in the investigations about which he writes outstanding scientist and a truly humanishere. Accordingly, this account is an appreciation, not a reminiscence. tic man.
Lane shown that the molecular weight of DNA was generally much greater than had been previously believed. In I95 1, Marko and Butler presented the first detailed account of the USC‘of the anionic detergent, SDS, for preparing DNA [3]. Almost immediately, this approach to the preparation of DNA took preccdencc over existing techniques. With some adjustments, but without major change, this technique was to become the standard method for preparing DNA during the next quarter century. It was also in 195 1 that Hurst and Butler communicated their preparation of monoesterasc-free snake venom phosphodiestcrase [4]. With this enzyme preparation, it was possible, for the first time. to effect quantitative conversion of DNA to its constituent 5’-deoxyribonucleotides. As a direct result of this development, the persistent doubts of all earlier research were soon erased as it became poslible to show that a 3’-5’ phosphodicster bridge is the exclusive internuclcotide linkage in both DNA and RNA, the latter-day discovery of the rare occurrence of terminal ‘cap’ structures in some species of RNA excepted. The accessibility of monoesterase-free preparations of snake venom phosphodiesterasc led Helleiner and Butler to make a more careful examination of the mode of action of the enzyme than had ever been possible before this time. By 1955, they had convincing evidence to show that the action of the enzyme was exo-nucleolytic. effecting removal of nucleotidc residues from the termini of deoxyribonuclcate chains [5]. This was the first indication that a nucleolytic enzyme could act in this ‘cxo’ manner and it set the stage for the work by Razzell and Khorana who showed that exonucleolysis takes place at 3’-hydroxyl termini in the cast of snake venom phosphodiestcrase. Although Levcne and his co-workers had characterized a sugar component of DNA as early as 1929, it is seldom appreciated that they had recovered 2-deoxy-D-ribose from a highly selected subfraction, mostly deoxyguanosine, which accounted for less than 1% of the mass of the DNA being analysed (see TIBS 4, Feb., 49 for an account of Levene’s work on 2-deoxy-D-ribose). It was not until 1956 that Walker and Butler reported the first full characterization of @,?ElsevlrriNorth-Holland
Biomedical Press 1979
TIBS
-
N 135
.ILUW I979
the sugar component in each of the deoxyribonucleosidcs from cellular DNA [6]. The sugar component of the pyrimidine dcoxyribonucleosides had never before been so adequately characterized. The quantitative features of this study allow cd the conclusion that 2-dcoxy-n-ribosc was quite likely to bc the sole sugar component in DNA. a conclusion which was far from trivial since it was soon found that ribose was not the only sugar component in RNA [7]. As one of Butler’s last students. J. M. Neelin performed the earliest gelelectrophoresis separations of the histones [8]: by using the same technique. Setterfield et al. [9] were soon able to show, for the first time. the extensive heterogeneity of the rihosomal proteins. The varied assortment of indcpendcnt investigations carried out by Butler and his students have had lasting impact on nucleate research: introduction of the light-scattering approach for measuring the molecular weights of DNA molecules; introduction of the ‘SDS method’ as a general procedure for preparing DNA; introduction of a method for effecting a quantitative conversion of DNA to its constituent S’-deoxyribonuclcotides; discovery that there arc enzymes which can degrade DNA by an ‘cxo’ action at the termini of polynuclcotidc chains; definitive characterization of 2-dcoxy-n-ribosc as the sole sugar component in DNA; introduction of the gel-electrophorcsis approach for separating nucleateassociated proteins. Current areas of investigation This multifaceted approach remains a cardinal characteristic of the nuclcatc research program in the Biochemistry department at the University of Toronto. No fewer than eleven members of staff have research interests which are closely if not exclusively allied with the study of nucleates. Areas of nucleate rcscarch which arc currently under investigation include: preparation of prnelastin mRNA from chick aortas and its cell-free translation (Anwar. R. A. and Krawctz. S., unpublished); X-ray crystallography of thymidine dinucleotide and the possible importance of the findings for undcrstanding the structure of polythymidylate [ 101; studies of damage and repair of DNA as they relate to carcinogens and carcinogenesis [l 11; studies of the regulated biosynthesis and assembly of RNA polymerase II through isolation of temperature-sensitive and (Yamanitin-resistant mutants of Chinese
hamster ovary cells [ 121; studies of the incorporation of extracellular DNA and proteins by cells of the Ehrlich ascitcs carcinoma [ 131; study of the possibility that base-pairing between SS rRNA and 18s rRNA may bc central to understanding the molecular basis of the attachment of large ribosomal subunits to smallsubunit initiation complexes [ 141; study of the structure of the eukaryotic chrvmosome with a view to how this might bc related to genecontrol [IS]; cell-free translation of the mRNA for brainspecific Sl00 protein with a view to defining its controlled expression, in viva [ 161; study of the controlled expression of ‘heat shock’ proteins in Drosophila rnelanogmtcr [ 171; studies of the conformation of DNA in prokaryotes and eukaryotcs with particular emphasis on the role of nicking-closing enzymes in removing super-helical coils in DNA molecules [ 181; stud& of the evolution of kinetic interactions between tRNA molecules and their cognate aminoacyltRNA ligases [ 191. References I Bullcr. A. H. R. (1YlY) E.wrys Macmillan Co. (N.Y.) 2 Smith, D. B. and Sheffer, H. (19.50) 2HB. 96-104
On
Wheat.
Marko. C’hcm. Hurst, Chm. Hcllciner. sity of Walker. Chcm. Smith, Biophyr.
Neclin.
Autr
3 I. 57X-575
J. M. and Conncll.
Bioylzyc.
AUN
G. t. ( I YSY) Rio< hurl.
3 I, 53Y-54
I
Y Sctterficld. G. E.. Ncclin. J. M.. Ncelin. Ii. M. and Bayley. S. T. ( I Y60) J. Mol. Biol. 2.4 16-124 10 Camcrman. N.. Fawcett, J. K. and C‘;tmcrman. A. ( 1076) J. ,Mol. Bid. 107. 60 l-62 I II Farber. I-... Parker. S. and Gruen~tcin. M. ( I Y76) C‘unc~er Rev.
36. 3870-3887
12 In&\. C. J.. Guialis. A.. Lam, .I. and Siminovitch, L. (I 976) J. Bid C’hwn. 25 I 272Y-2734 13 Kay. I:. R. M. (I Y66) Tmn?. N. Y. ./turd. .Sr i. 28. 726-740 I4 Azad. A. A. and Lane. B. G. (l’Y73) (‘NII ./. Rim&w. 5 I. 1669-l 672 IS Lewl\, P. N. (1077)
Can. J. Rcr.
A. M. and Butler. G. C. (I 05 I ) ./. Ri<~l. 190, I 65 176 R. 0. and Butler, G. C. (105 I) ./. R/r,l. 193. Y-Y6 C. W. (lY5S) Ph.D. The\i\ (UnivcrToronto) I. G. and Butler. G. C. (IY56) ( w. .I 34. I 168-l 175 J. D. and Dunn. D. B. (I Y5Y) R~rwl~irn.
Ac~nd.
1’) Wong. (U.S.A.)
Sci.
J. T.
(U.S.A.)
( 1976)
72.
Proc..
4280-42X4
NNI.
.4~ (I(/.
.Sr,i.
73. 2336-2340
Biotechnology - pulling the threads together What common interest would bring together workers from disciplines as far apart as biochemistry, food technology, mining and civil engineering. ‘Biotechnology’ is the short answer, and it is to aid the exchange of information between these and other groups of scientists and technologists that the European Federation of Biotechnology has been formed. The term ‘biotechnology’, which has been appearing with increasing regularity in science magazines and meeting agendas, can best be defined as the technical and applied aspects of resea’rch into biological materials and, in particular, into biological processing. In the words of W. R. Stanton of Kuala Lumpur the biotechnologist’s aim is to ‘bring engineering, biochemical and microbiological techniques together as elements of novel art, as distinct from mere refinements of ancient art.’ One of the most characteristic features of biotechnological studies is the extraordinary range of disciplines which need
to be combined to produce scientifically interesting and commercially valuable results. The biochemist, for example, may be studying microbial metabolism, enzymology or genetic engineering which could lead to the production of a more efficient yeast for fermentation. The chemical engineer will then need to find out the detailed process requirements, in terms of heat and mass transport, and the most efficient methods of recovering the product. Until September 1978 when the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) was formally constituted, Europe had no international organization which concerned itself exclusively with the problems of biotechnology. John Bu’lock, the (British) Biochemical Society’s representative at the EFB, emphasizes that the Federation aims to supplement and strengthen all those international and national organizations which include biotechnology as part of their m-ogrammes, rather than to compete with any @ Elsevicr/N~,rth-H,,lland
Biomedical Prcv
L47Y