Aug 8 1977
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(New page: NASA reported a first-time continuous operation by NASA funded Univ. of Fla. researchers of a nuclear pumped gas laser reported earlier by LaRC scientists -[see During July]. Confirmin...)
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NASA reported a first-time continuous operation by NASA funded Univ. of Fla. researchers of a nuclear pumped gas laser reported earlier by LaRC scientists -[see During July]. Confirming the results of the Georgia Tech experiment, the Fla. group had transmitted laser energy for 15min and reported that longer transmission was possible. Earlier nuclear pumped lasers had produced only short bursts of energy. (NASA Release 77-165)
NASA announced it had patented a way to control cell division that might mean a new treatment for cancer or replacement of lost cells in the brain or other parts of the human nervous system. Studying at LaRC the effects of space radiation on living cells, Dr. Clarence D. Cone, Jr., former head of LaRC's molecular biophysics lab, now chief of the nearby VA molecular biology laboratory, had changed electrical potential across hamster cell membranes. Studies had shown cell division could be either blocked or stimulated by various agents, most of which could not produce both effects. Cone's method of surrounding the cells with various concentrations of sodium, potassium, and chloride ions, patterned after ionic mechanisms used by the body to control cell division, could either turn on or turn off the process.
Cone's successful attempts to stimulate cells to divide or proliferate, or prevent dividing and proliferating, had not damaged the cells, and showed that he processes were reversible. Manipulating the ionic levels in human body cells might permit reversal or inhibition of uncontrolled proliferation, such as that of cancer cells. (NASA Release 77-162)
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