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| Jean Rostand |
In a earlier article I described among the work on frogs and toads carried out by the French biologist, Jean Rostand (1894-1977), who in later years has been described as ‘sensible’ and ‘eccentric’. Rostand had one other declare to fame that brought on a flurry of pleasure and embarrassment on the Nationwide Institute of Medical Analysis (NIMR) in London. In 1952 Rostand wrote, asking for offprints of papers written by members of the Institute regarding the usage of glycerol as the primary agent that protected spermatozoa and different cells from the consequences of freezing to and thawing from very low temperatures. What occurred is described by Sir Alan Parkes FRS (1900-1990) in his autobiography Off-beat Biologist:
Early in Could 1952 a most attention-grabbing and pleasant new connection opened up – Audrey [Smith] had a request for offprints from Jean Rostand, the distinguished French biologist, who on the similar time despatched us a replica of a paper revealed by him as early as 1946 within the Comptes-Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences entitled ‘Glycérine et résistance du sperme aux basses températures’. His paper was totally unknown to us and the mere title put us in a twitter. Had we perpetrated some fearful scientific blunder? Nonetheless, on studying the paper it appeared that, though we must have identified of it, the work was under no circumstances just like ours. Rostand had used glycerol to maintain suspensions of frog sperm from solidifying at temperatures barely beneath freezing. Underneath such circumstances the spermatozoa regained mobility, however had misplaced fertilising energy. In acknowledging Audrey’s reprints Rostand mentioned that he would strive eradicating the glycerol slowly by dialysis, however we by no means heard whether or not fertilising energy was thus restored.
Early in July 1955 Ruth Deanesly [Lady Parkes] and I have been at a convention in Paris and took the chance of calling on Rostand. He obtained us most kindly at his mixed dwelling and laboratory and proved to be a pleasant particular person. On leaving Paris on the Sunday morning we purchased a newspaper which, to our shock and pleasure, carried an in depth article about him, illustrated with sketches, from which we learnt that Jean was the son of Edmond Rostand, the playwright who had immortalised Cyrano de Bergerac, that on Wednesday of the earlier week (the very day we had referred to as on him) he had been awarded a prize of three million francs by the Singer-Polignac Basis and that at one stage of his researches he had fallen foul of the gendarmes when he let loose 70,000 toads within the woods of Saint-Cloud.
Thus Rostand is recorded as a pioneer in cryobiology. The work at NIMR turned well-known as a result of, when utilized to agriculture, it revolutionised synthetic insemination and enabled the fast genetic enchancment of livestock. It was no accident that two of the triumvirate concerned began off with levels in agriculture, Parkes himself and Chris Polge, later FRS, (1926-2006). The opposite member was Audrey Ursula Smith (1915-1981) who was medically certified with a level in physiology.
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| Audrey Smith, Alan Parkes and Chris Polge see beneath for sources |
Accounts of how glycerol was discovered to be affective differ barely. The Parkes group was following up work which prompt that some sugars is perhaps protecting towards freezing and thawing. Fructose or laevulose, to make use of the terminology in use on the time, had been used to some impact within the early Forties and this work was being checked. Nonetheless, nothing of any nice significance was discovered and the sugar options have been put within the chilly retailer for some months.
Parkes in 1956 wrote of what occurred subsequent:
Some months later work was resumed with the identical materials and destructive outcomes have been once more obtained with all the options besides one which nearly fully preserved motility in fowl spermatozoa frozen to -79°C [the temperature of ‘dry ice’ solid carbon dioxide]. Additional experiments confirmed this consequence and at this level, with some trepidation, the small quantity (10 or 15 ml) of the miraculous resolution remaining was handed over to our colleague Dr D. Elliott for chemical evaluation. He reported that the answer contained glycerol, water, and a good quantity of protein! It was then realized that Meyer’s albumen[*] – the glycerol and albumen of the histologist – had been used in the middle of morphological work on the spermatozoa concurrently the laevulose options have been being examined, and with them had been put away within the cold-store. Assessments with new materials very quickly confirmed that the albumen performed no half within the protecting impact.
Though we by no means found precisely what had occurred it is rather possible that in the course of the lengthy spell within the cold-store the labels had fallen off among the bottles, a behavior they’ve in cold-store, and had been changed by some zealot on the flawed bottles, although there was no proof that any of our personal technicians had been concerned. Be that as it could, there can have been few experiments through which blind probability stepped in additional successfully.
Different accounts point out that it was Audrey Smith who deduced that glycerol was a constituent of the ‘flawed bottle’ as the results of her unintentionally dropping the bottle within the lab sink. A droplet of the contents flew out of the sink and landed on a hotplate which was certainly scorching. She instantly recognised the odor from the puff of smoke as acrolein, the thermal degradation product of glycerol.
Labels falling off bottles was commonplace in laboratories of the time. Labelling glass was tough. The same old methodology was a water-soluble gummed paper label for reagents. Sellotape, the UK equal of Scotch Tape may additionally have been used however on the time however was costly and never broadly accessible. It too suffered on bottles and the labels additionally usually fell off particularly within the chilly. A thriller stays in who put the labels again the flawed—however fortuitously proper—means spherical.
It will seem that in utilizing glycerol to droop frog spermatozoa, as Parkes indicated, Rostand additionally unintentionally found its cryoprotective results however solely took his experiments to barely beneath freezing level.
*The recipe I’ve is 50 ml white of egg, 50 ml glycerol, 1 g of sodium salicylate
Hunter RHF. 2008. Ernest John Christopher Polge. 16 August 1926 – 17 August 2006. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 54, 275–296. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2008.0006
Parkes AS. 1985. Off-beat Biologist. Cambridge: Galton Basis.
Polge C, Smith AU, Parkes AS. 1949. Revival of spermatozoa after vitrification and dehydration at low temperatures. Nature 164, 666.
Rostand J. 1946. Glycérine et résistance du sperme aux basses températures. Comptes-Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences 222, 1524-1525.
AS Parkes {photograph}: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Photos photographs@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Portrait of Alan Sterling Parkes exterior the Household Planning Workplaces, June 1957. POlge {photograph}: Royal Society – from Hunter 2008.
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