3 SHARE NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE

Author: By Robert Cooke Globe Staff

Date: Tuesday, October 12, 1982
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER

Sweden's Sune K. Bergstrom, 66, and Bengt I. Samuelsson, 48, and Britain's John R. Vane, 55, shared the $157,000 prize, the first of this year's Nobel awards. The announcement was made by the faculty of the Karolinska Insitute for Medicine in Stockholm, a tradition.

All three - Bergstrom and his former student, Samuelsson, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and Vane from the Wellcome Foundation in England - are visiting Boston this week to help celebrate the Harvard School of Medicine's 200th anniversary.

During a news conference at the medical school yesterday, the three drank a champagne toast, expressed their surprise at winning the award, and emphasized the value of basic scientific research.

"It's wonderful there is no generation gap in science," Bergstrom, 66, said, referring to his former student, Samuelsson. "You can have no greater satisfaction than seeing your students successful."

Said Samuelsson, "He's my mentor, and it's very nice."

The scientists won the award for their pioneering studies of the prostaglandins, natural compounds made by living cells. They were discovered about 50 years ago, and were first characterized by Bergstrom, who is called the "father" of prostaglandins.

The substances, named after their original discovery in the prostate gland, can have both positive and negative effects on the body.

The natural and synthetically produced prostaglandins - and drugs that counteract their effects - have a wide range of present and potential uses in medical treatment, in addition to the basic research leads offered by the discovery of a new biological system.

Specialists say that future prostaglandin research may provide new avenues for treating allergies and a possible means for preventing heart attacks.

Vane discovered that aspirin slows the body's production of some prostaglandins and proposed that this is how aspirin works as a pain killer. That idea is now widely accepted.

This discovery also suggests, however, that prostaglandins can have both positive and negative effects in the body.

"This whole field has become one excitement after another," Vane commented yesterday."

Vane was cited by the Nobel committee for his "discovery of the prostaglandin known as prostacyclin in 1976, and for analyzing its biological effects and function."

The British scientist said evidence shows that one kind of prostaglandin called thromboxane may promote the clotting of blood, while the one he discovered, prostocyclin, which is made by the inner lining of blood vessels, may act to prevent clotting.

What emerges, then, is the concept of blood clotting being controlled by two opposing forces, and when they somehow get out of balance an ailment such as heart disease may be the result.

Vane and his colleagues in England thus suggest that some blood vessel diseases may be a result of prostacylcin deficiency, and may thus respond to "hormone replacement therapy."

Prostacyclin, indeed, is already being used to ease heart pain in some cases, and to promote ulcer healing.

Bergstrom, a professor of chemistry at the Karolinska Institute, retired 1 1/2 years ago from teaching. He is chairman of the board of directors of Nobel Foundation and chairman of the advisory committee on medical research for the World Health Organization.

"I spend about a third of my time with the World Health Organization traveling around the world helping to build research facilities," he said.

Bergstrom was cited by the Nobel committee for producing "a crucial breakthrough in the understanding of the chemical structure of prostaglandins. His discoveries have placed the metabolism of unsaturated fatty acids at the center of future research on blood."

Samuelsson is also professor of chemistry at the Karolinska Institute, where he is also chairman of the department of physiological chemistry and dean of the medical faculty. He was cited by the Nobel committee for his role in clarifying "the chemical processes involved in the formation and breakdown of chemical compounds in the human biological system."

Samuelsson and his co-workers were the first to recognize thromoboxane, the substance that plays an important role in causing blood platelets to clot. He also helped clarify the chemical processes involved in the formation and breakdown of other substances in the living body. These include leukotriene C, a substance of immense interest because of its possible role in causing smooth muscle contraction, and in changing the permeability of blood vessels to proteins in the blood.

Researchers suspect the leukotrienes may someday turn out to be important controlling elements in human bronchial asthma.

TOLBER;10/11,18:28 LDRISC;10/13,14 B07796338