Protein Made Synthetically By Woodward

Silk that doesn't come from worms, wool that doesn't come from sheep, and man-made skin and hair that doesn't grow on humans can now be produced by a process announced by Robert B. Woodward, associate professor of chemistry, this week in the current issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Woodward, who made the headlines back in 1944 as co-discoverer of artificial synthesis of quinine, is now the first to synthesize a substance with the same molecular structure as fibrous proteins. This is the basic stuff of all forms of animal life.

Long Molecular Chains

Assisted by Charles H. Schramm, Woodward succeeded in forming long protein like molecules which are comparable to those of hair, muscle, nerves, and skin. He has cautiously termed these chaina protein "analogs," until he can examine the molecules more thoroughly at more points in the linkage.

Two major problems confronted Woodward at the outset. First he had to find units which could be incorporated into the chains of the desired protein analogs. Then he had to devise a method for initiating the growth of the chain.

Sole previous method for producing gaint protein molecules directly involved the natural growth processes of living organisms. At the starting point of Woodward's process are alpha amino acids, which can readily be extracted from meat of vegetables.

Fisher Opened Way

Back in 1907 Emil Fisher, German chemist, painstakingly made an amino chain of 18 units, but chains of 10,000 units and up are already coming out in Woodward's laboratory. The new molecules may even outdo nature itself, which suggests that an entirely new field of plastics may be opened up.

Woodward has already squirted thin liquid streams of the molecules into warm air, in long siken threads. And a transparent plastic film eight ten thousandths of an inch thick has been made from the new material, by pouring solutions of the analog on a frozen surface.

Medicine will be an immediate beneficiary of Woodward's discovery. The synthesis provides a model for the way the body digests and then synthesizes its proteins. Stomach juices act on proteins to reshuffle the natural amino acid chains into the solid parts of the body.

Germ-Killing Possible

Another medical implication of the process is that it may permit lengthening the chains of harmful virus proteins, thus transforming them into neutral or beneficial materials. Actual germ killing methods may also develop from further investigation.

It has been observed that anti-biotics (such as penicillin), produced by soil bacterial have molecular structures like proteins, although the overall size is considerably smaller. With Woodward's general method, many of these so-called antibiotics have been tured out, but their effectiveness is at yet untested.