At the very beginning of the twentieth century, on February 28, 1901, in Portland, Oregon, twice Nobel laureate, laureate of the Soviet Lenin Prize and Peace Prize, chemist and crystallographer Linus Carl Pauling was born. Everyone knows the names of Blaise Pascal or Leonardo da Vinci, who have shown themselves in different fields of knowledge. The twentieth century was also not stingy with the birth of geniuses. Among the twenty greatest scientists of all eras, only two scientists from the twentieth century appear on the list - Einstein and Pauling.

A family

The father of the future scientist, Herman Pauling, was a German immigrant, and his mother, Lucy Isabelle Darling, came from an old Irish family. Linus Pauling grew up with two younger sisters, Pauline and Lucille, while his father was often on the road, as he worked as a salesman for a supplier - a medical company. In 1905, he was able to open his own pharmacy in the city of Condon - in the same place, in Oregon.

This place was located east of the ocean and was rather dry, but the children liked it. There, little Linus Pauling began attending school. He learned to read much earlier and already devoured books with might and main. The father was even worried, observing such an early development of the boy. Therefore, when the family moved to Portland in 1910, he turned to the local newspaper for advice regarding his nine-year-old son, who had already read not only the Bible, but also Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

School

Naturally, school teachers were amazed at the abilities that Linus Pauling showed. He studied remarkably, collected minerals, classified insects, read very, very much. He was especially interested in chemistry. In 1914, he was already setting up complex experiments at his home with a classmate, Lloyd Jeffers.

However, the family was going through quite difficult times financially, and therefore, at first, not everything went smoothly with studies. From time to time I had to interrupt it in order to earn extra money and at least help the family a little. However, he always impressed teachers. Not only in school, but also in the agricultural college, where he entered to become a chemical engineer and where education was free.

Why chemistry?

Linus Carl Pauling took over the propensity for this science from his father, a pharmacist, who prepared a variety of ointments and powders in his pharmacy. It is a pity that he died early, otherwise the boy would not have learned chemistry from textbooks. Moreover, the father perfectly saw what the boy's abilities were and how he was drawn to knowledge. It was my father who replenished the home library with books on chemistry. However, at the age of nine, Linus lost his father. And then the need arose in the family.

From early childhood, the boy worked part-time - he washed dishes in a small cafe, and sorted paper in a printing house, he did not even manage to get a diploma at school. However, in a free college, he showed such extraordinary abilities that he was immediately accepted into the graduate school of the Institute of Technology in California. In 1923, he graduated from it, having received the highest distinction and two scientific degrees - a doctor of chemical sciences and a bachelor in physics. Immediately after graduating from this educational institution, Linus married and was happy with Euwe Miller for fifty-eight years.

First works

A private foundation helped the young scientist with a scholarship, which gave him the opportunity to train for a whole year with European luminaries: in Munich - with Sommerfeld, in Zurich - with Schrödinger, in Copenhagen - with Niels Bohr. Even then, Linus Pauling began to write books, and the first work was published in the thirties on the nature and structure of molecules and crystals. She literally made a revolution in chemistry, and the development of science flowed in the direction set for many years to come.

The book quickly spread around the world, it was translated into many dozens of languages, and Dr. Linus Pauling rightfully became one of the leading scientists of his time. The Second World War forced the switch from pure science to military science: Pauling invented new types of explosives and rocket fuel, invented an oxygen generator for aircraft and submarines, and also created the synthesis of blood plasma for medical work in the field. The contribution to the fight against fascism was enormous and was awarded the medal of the United States. But this recognition did not last long.

Fight for Peace

Linus Pauling received the first Nobel Prize in 1954. Even if he stopped doing science, focusing on explaining the structure of complex molecules, his name would forever remain in the history of science. Naturally, the scientist continued his work, although from year to year it became more and more difficult for him to work in the United States. The fact is that Linus Pauling lost his credibility in his country, speaking out against the use of atomic weapons after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The scientist began an extensive campaign while on the national security commission.

Traveling around America, he lectured about this new danger, and in 1946 he founded an anti-war committee composed of nuclear scientists. He told the whole society the truth about the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, proving that testing it in the atmosphere cannot be harmless. His calculations especially affected the public: fifty-five thousand little Americans will be born disabled, and five hundred thousand will be stillborn, because even in the smallest doses, strontium-90 causes leukemia and bone cancer, and iodine-131 threatens literally everyone with thyroid cancer.

Resonance

A storm arose in the United States, the people were indignant and protested, and the government put Pauling on the list of unreliable citizens, beside themselves with anger, because they had absolutely nothing to refute Pauling's statements. In 1952, he was not allowed to attend the London conference, where he promised to demonstrate the DNA helix, he was simply not given a passport. And so it so happened that the priority in this discovery went to Crick and Watson. However, Pauling was indifferent to this, he continued the fight against nuclear weapons with even greater tenacity.

In 1958, he was declared an agent of the Kremlin because of the appeal, which was signed by eleven thousand scientists from forty-nine countries. At the same time, his new book "No War!" was published, the circulation of which around the world amounted to many millions. In 1960, he collected signatures for an appeal calling for a ban on nuclear testing. Pauling was threatened with prison, but he only laughed in response. Outright bullying began. Rumors were spread that contradicted each other: some shouted that he was working for the USSR, others presented the conclusion of leading psychiatrists that Pauling was out of his mind. And then an event happened that silenced both of them. Linus Pauling received his second Nobel Peace Prize.

Victory

The persecution, however, did not stop. They tried to challenge the opinion of the Nobel Committee and its decision. In the newspapers, Pauling was called nothing more than peacnik - a neologism made up of the English word "world" and the Russian suffix taken from the word "satellite" (which, by the way, ahead of the American ones, has already flown into space). Pauling did not react to all this, he was busy drawing up a treaty to end nuclear tests. And in 1963, the USSR, England and the USA signed this very treaty at the request of the world community.

Of course, no one remembered Linus Pauling himself, politicians got fame here, but it was he who saved millions of lives. In the meantime, the rebellious scientist's ability to continue his scientific work dried up, since no one now provided financial support to the fighter for peace. The scientist considered it more important to continue social activities, and in 1965 he signed another seditious document. It was a declaration of civil disobedience over the Vietnam War. It was all Linus Pauling.

vitamins

The scientist was forced to leave the University of California and moved to Stafford, but government officials did not leave him alone. Pauling's health deteriorated rapidly. Genetically, he was clearly not born a long-liver, his father died at thirty-four, his mother - at forty-five. And sick kidneys in those days was a death sentence. The strict diet didn't help. However, Pauling wouldn't be Pauling if he didn't find a way out. In 1966, he already received a medal for the unification of medical and biological sciences. On the advice of biochemists, including Irving Stone, he began taking vitamin C. There was already a notion that it was not bacteria and viruses that killed people.

It's just that almost all mammals, except monkeys and humans, are able to synthesize ascorbic acid in the body, and the liver produces it in exact proportion to body weight. And again Linus Pauling made the calculations: vitamins for an adult should be about ten to twelve grams per day. With food, he receives two hundred times less. He tried this method, of course, on himself. The colds have stopped.

Again against the current

In 1970 Pauling's new book on vitamin C and the common cold came out and became an instant bestseller. The US Academy of Sciences recommended only 0.06 grams of vitamin C per day for an adult male, while Pauling recommended six to eighteen healthy grams. That is, a hundred times more.

The dose should be individual, and it is easy to calculate it: increase little by little until the intestines rebel. Practitioners were wary of this technique, but the Americans believed, and within two weeks the stocks of ascorbic acid ran out in pharmacies. But expensive drugs, even those that were advertised very widely, were almost completely sold out. The pharmaceutical companies were furious.

1954
Nobel Peace Prize, 1962

American chemist Linus Carl Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of Lucy Isabell (Darling) Pauling and Herman Henry William Pauling, a pharmacist. Pauling Sr. died when his son was 9 years old. Pauling has been interested in science since childhood. In the beginning, he collected insects and minerals. At the age of 13, one of Pauling's friends introduced him to chemistry, and the future scientist began to experiment. He did it at home, and took the dishes for experiments from his mother in the kitchen. Pauling attended Washington High School in Portland but did not complete his Abitur. However, he enrolled at Oregon State Agricultural College (later Oregon State University) in Corvallis, where he studied mainly chemical engineering, chemistry, and physics. To support himself and his mother financially, he earned money by washing dishes and sorting paper. When Pauling was in his penultimate year, as an unusually gifted student, he was hired as an assistant in the department of quantitative analysis. In his senior year, he became an assistant in chemistry, mechanics and materials. After receiving a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering in 1922, Pauling began preparing his doctoral dissertation in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Pauling was the first at the California Institute of Technology who, after graduating from this institution of higher education, immediately began working as an assistant, and then as a teacher in the department of chemistry. In 1925 he was awarded a doctorate in chemistry summa cum laude(with the highest praise. - lat.). For the next two years, he worked as a researcher and was a member of the National Research Council at the California Institute of Technology. In 1927, Pauling received the title of assistant professor, in 1929 - associate professor, and in 1931 - professor of chemistry.

Working all these years as a researcher, Pauling became a specialist in X-ray crystallography - the passage of X-rays through a crystal to form a characteristic pattern that can be used to judge the atomic structure of a given substance. Using this method, Pauling studied the nature of chemical bonds in benzene and other aromatic compounds (compounds that typically contain one or more benzene rings and are aromatic). A Guggenheim Fellowship enabled him to spend the academic year 1926/27 studying quantum mechanics with Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich, Erwin Schrödinger in Zurich, and with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. Quantum mechanics, created by Schrödinger in 1926, which was called wave mechanics, and the exclusion principle expounded by Wolfgang Pauli in 1925, were to have a profound impact on the study of chemical bonds.

In 1928, Pauling put forward his theory of resonance, or hybridization, of chemical bonds in aromatic compounds, which was based on the concept of electron orbitals drawn from quantum mechanics. In the older model of benzene, which was still used from time to time for convenience, three of the six chemical bonds (binding electron pairs) between adjacent carbon atoms were single bonds, and the remaining three were double bonds. Single and double bonds alternated in the benzene ring. Thus, benzene could have two possible structures, depending on which bonds were single and which were double. It was known, however, that double bonds were shorter than single bonds, and X-ray diffraction showed that all bonds in a carbon molecule were of equal length. The resonance theory stated that all bonds between carbon atoms in the benzene ring were intermediate in character between single and double bonds. According to Pauling's model, benzene rings can be considered as hybrids of their possible structures. This concept has proven to be extremely useful in predicting the properties of aromatic compounds. Over the next few years, Pauling continued to study the physicochemical properties of molecules, especially those related to resonance. In 1934, he turned his attention to biochemistry, in particular to the biochemistry of proteins. Together with A. E. Mirsky, he formulated the theory of protein structure and function, together with C. D. Corwell studied the effect of oxygenation (oxygen saturation) on the magnetic properties of hemoglobin, an oxygen-containing protein in red blood cells.

When Artoo Noyes died in 1936, Pauling was appointed Dean of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and director of the Gates and Crellin Chemistry Laboratories at Caltech. While in these administrative positions, he initiated the study of the atomic and molecular structure of proteins and amino acids (the monomers that make up proteins) using X-ray crystallography, and in the academic 1937–1938. He was a lecturer in chemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

In 1942, Pauling and his colleagues, who obtained the first artificial antibodies, succeeded in changing the chemical structure of certain blood proteins known as globulins. Antibodies are globulin molecules produced by specialized cells in response to antigens (foreign substances) such as viruses, bacteria, and toxins entering the body. An antibody is combined with a specific type of antigen that stimulates its production. Pauling correctly postulated that the three-dimensional structures of an antigen and its antibody are complementary and thus "responsible" for the formation of the antigen-antibody complex. In 1947, he and George W. Beadle received a five-year grant to study the mechanism by which the polio virus destroys nerve cells. For the next year, Pauling held a professorship at Oxford University.

Pauling's work on sickle cell anemia began in 1949 when he learned that the red blood cells of patients with this hereditary disease become sickle-shaped only in venous blood, where oxygen levels are low. Based on his knowledge of the chemistry of hemoglobin, Pauling immediately suggested that the sickle-shaped red cells were caused by a genetic defect deep within the cellular hemoglobin. (The hemoglobin molecule is made up of an iron porphyrin called heme and a protein called globin.) This suggestion is clear evidence of Pauling's amazing scientific intuition. Three years later, the scientist was able to prove that normal hemoglobin and hemoglobin taken from patients with sickle cell anemia can be distinguished using electrophoresis, a method of separating different proteins in a mixture. The discovery confirmed Pauling's belief that the cause of the anomaly lies in the protein part of the molecule.

In 1951, Pauling and R. B. Corey published the first complete description of the molecular structure of proteins. It was the result of research that lasted 14 long years. Using X-ray crystallography to analyze proteins in hair, fur, muscles, nails, and other biological tissues, they found that the chains of amino acids in a protein twisted around one another in a helical pattern. This description of the three-dimensional structure of proteins marked a major advance in biochemistry.

But not all of Pauling's scientific endeavors were successful. In the early 50s. he focused his attention on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the biological molecule that contains the genetic code. In 1953, when scientists around the world were trying to establish the structure of DNA, Pauling published an article in which he described this structure as a triple helix, which is not true. A few months later, Francis Crick and James D. Watson published their now famous paper describing the DNA molecule as a double helix.

In 1954, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his study of the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the determination of the structure of compounds." In his Nobel Lecture, Pauling predicted that future chemists would "rely on a new structural chemistry, including the precisely defined geometric relationships between atoms in molecules and the rigorous application of new structural principles, and that through this technology significant progress would be made in solving problems of biology and medicine with the help of chemical methods.

Although Pauling was a pacifist in his early years during World War I, Pauling served as an official member of the National Defense Research Commission during World War II and worked on the development of new rocket fuels and the search for new sources of oxygen for underwater boats and aircraft. As an officer of the Office of Research and Development, he made significant contributions to the development of plasma substitutes for blood transfusion and for the military. However, shortly after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pauling began a campaign against the new type of weapon and in 1945-1946, as a member of the National Security Commission, he lectured on the dangers of nuclear war.

In 1946, Pauling co-founded the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, set up by Albert Einstein and 7 other eminent scientists to push for a ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Four years later, the nuclear arms race had already picked up speed, and Pauling opposed his government's decision to build a hydrogen bomb, calling for an end to all atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. In the early 1950s, when both the US and the USSR tested hydrogen bombs and the level of radioactivity in the atmosphere increased, Pauling used his considerable talent as an orator to publicize the possible biological and genetic consequences of radioactive fallout. The scientist's concern about the potential genetic danger was partly due to his research on the molecular basis of hereditary diseases. Pauling and 52 other Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration in 1955 calling for an end to the arms race.

When in 1957 Pauling drafted an appeal demanding an end to nuclear testing, it was signed by over 11,000 scientists from 49 countries, including over 2,000 Americans. In January 1958, Pauling presented this document to Dag Hammarskjöld, who was then Secretary General of the United Nations. Pauling's efforts contributed to the founding of the Pugwash Movement for Scientific Cooperation and International Security, whose first conference of supporters was held in 1957 in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada, and which eventually succeeded in facilitating the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty. Such serious public and personal concern about the danger of contamination of the atmosphere with radioactive substances led to the fact that in 1958, despite the absence of any agreement, the USA, the USSR and Great Britain voluntarily stopped testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

However, Pauling's efforts to achieve a ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons met not only with support, but also with considerable resistance. Noted American scientists such as Edward Teller and Willard F. Libby, both members of the US Atomic Energy Commission, have argued that Pauling exaggerates the biological effects of fallout. Pauling also ran into political obstacles due to alleged pro-Soviet sympathies. In the early 50s. the scientist had difficulty obtaining a passport (to travel abroad), and he received a passport without any restrictions only after he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Ironically, during the same period, Pauling was also under attack in the Soviet Union, because his resonant theory of the formation of chemical bonds was considered contrary to Marxist teaching (after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, this theory was recognized in Soviet science). Pauling twice (in 1955 and 1960) was summoned to the subcommittee on homeland security of the US Senate, where he was asked questions about his political views and political activities. On both occasions he denied ever being a communist or sympathizing with Marxist views. In the second case (in 1960), he, at the risk of being accused of contempt for Congress, refused to name those who helped him collect signatures for the 1957 appeal. In the end, the case was dropped.

In June 1961, Pauling and his wife called a conference in Oslo, Norway against the spread of nuclear weapons. In September of the same year, despite Pauling's appeals to Nikita Khrushchev, the USSR resumed atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and the following year, in March, the United States did it. Pauling began to monitor levels of radioactivity and in October 1962 made public information that showed that, due to tests carried out in the previous year, the level of radioactivity in the atmosphere had doubled compared to the previous 16 years. Pauling also drafted a proposed treaty to ban such tests. In July 1963, the USA, the USSR and Great Britain signed a nuclear test ban treaty based on the Pauling project.

In 1963, Pauling was awarded the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize. In his opening speech on behalf of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Gunnar Jahn stated that Pauling "led an ongoing campaign not only against nuclear weapons testing, not only against the proliferation of these weapons, not only against their very use, but against any military action as a means of resolving international conflicts. In his Nobel Lecture, entitled "Science and Peace," Pauling expressed the hope that the nuclear test ban treaty would "begin a series of treaties that would lead to the creation of a new world where the possibility of war would forever be excluded."

The same year that Pauling received his second Nobel Prize, he retired from Caltech and became a research professor at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California. Here he was able to devote more time to the problems of international disarmament. In 1967, Pauling also took up a position as professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, hoping to spend more time doing research in molecular medicine. Two years later, he left and became a professor of chemistry at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. By this time, Pauling had already retired from the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. At the end of the 60s. Pauling became interested in the biological effects of vitamin C. The scientist and his wife themselves began to regularly take this vitamin, while Pauling began to publicly advertise its use to prevent colds. In the monograph "Vitamin C and the Common Cold", published in 1971, Pauling summarized the practical evidence and theoretical evidence published in the current press in support of the therapeutic properties of vitamin C. In the early 70s. Pauling also formulated the theory of orthomolecular medicine, which emphasized the importance of vitamins and amino acids in maintaining an optimal molecular environment for the brain. These theories, which were widely known at the time, were not supported by the results of subsequent research and were largely rejected by specialists in medicine and psychiatry. Pauling, however, takes the view that the grounds for their counterarguments are far from flawless.

In 1973, Pauling founded the Linus Pauling Medical Institute in Palo Alto. For the first two years he was its president and then became a professor there. He and his colleagues at the institute continue to conduct research into the therapeutic properties of vitamins, in particular the possibility of using vitamin C to treat cancer. In 1979, Pauling published Cancer and Vitamin C, in which he claims that large doses of vitamin C can prolong life and improve the condition of patients with certain types of cancer. However, reputable cancer researchers do not find his arguments convincing.

In 1922, Pauling married Ava Helen Miller, one of his students at the Oregon State Agricultural College. The couple have three sons and a daughter. After his wife's death in 1981, Pauling lived in their country house in Big Sur, California.

In addition to two Nobel Prizes, Pauling received many awards. Among them: the award for achievements in the field of pure chemistry of the American Chemical Society (1931), the Davy Medal of the Royal Society of London (1947), the Soviet government award - the international Lenin Prize "For the strengthening of peace among peoples" (1971), the national medal "For scientific Achievements” of the National Science Foundation (1975), the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1978), the Prize in Chemistry of the American National Academy of Sciences (1979) and the Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society (1984). The scientist was awarded honorary degrees from Chicago, Princeton, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge universities. Pauling was a member of many professional organizations. This is the American National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as scientific societies or academies in Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, India, Norway, Portugal, France, Austria and the USSR. He was president of the American Chemical Society (1948) and the Pacific Chapter of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1942-1945), and vice-president of the American Philosophical Society (1951-1954).

Municipal Secondary School No. 8

abstract

on the topic:

Linus Carl Pauling
"How to live long and be healthy"

Performed:
11 B class student
Sharova Olga

Approved:
biology teacher
Kuznetsova L. A.

Kostroma 2001.

"Life is not a property of any
single molecule, but rather the result of the interaction between molecules"
Linus Pauling

Introduction

"HE'S A REAL GENIUS!" - Albert Einstein on Linus Pauling". A television commercial for probably two months now has been reminding us of the 100th anniversary of the birth of a truly outstanding American scientist. However, it is hard to believe in such disinterestedness of advertisers. After all, why not remind us of birthday of Albert Einstein himself (March 14, 1879.) How many more worthy names in the world of science, why Linus Carl Pauling?

Pauling, Crick, and Watson may not have realized at the time that their work was ushering in a new era in biological science. By the time the double helix was discovered, biology and chemistry were primarily a craft, an art of practice. These sciences were created by small groups of people mainly within the framework of academic research. But the seeds of change had already been sown. Thanks to a number of discoveries in the field of medicines, and primarily thanks to the discoveries of the polio vaccine and penicillin, science biology came close to becoming an industry.

Today, fields such as organic chemistry, molecular biology, and basic drug research are no longer the work of a small number of "artisans"; they have turned into industrial production. Academic research is still ongoing, however, it is clear that most of the research and funding allocated to research is concentrated in the pharmaceutical industry. The union of science with industry is not easy, to say the least. On the one hand, pharmaceutical companies are able to fund research at levels that academic institutions can only dream of. On the other hand, this funding is directed only to topics of interest to companies. Judge for yourself what the pharmaceutical company would prefer to finance: research in the field of finding ways to cure the disease, or research.

Biography

American chemist Linus Carl Pauling (Pauling) was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of Lucy Isabell (Darling) Pauling and Herman Henry William Pauling, a pharmacist. Pauling Sr. died when his son was 9 years old. Pauling has been interested in science since childhood. In the beginning, he collected insects and minerals. At the age of 13, one of Pauling's friends introduced him to chemistry, and the future scientist began to experiment. He did it at home, and took the dishes for experiments from his mother in the kitchen. Linus attended Washington High School in Portland but did not complete his Abitur. However, he enrolled at the Oregon State Agricultural College (later Oregon State University) in Corvallis, where he studied mainly chemical engineering, chemistry, and physics. To support himself and his mother financially, he earned money by washing dishes and sorting paper. When Pauling was in his penultimate year, as an unusually gifted student, he was hired as an assistant in the department of quantitative analysis. In his senior year, he became an assistant in chemistry, mechanics and materials. After receiving a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering in 1922, Pauling began preparing his doctoral dissertation in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Pauling was the first at the California Institute of Technology who, after graduating from this institution of higher education, immediately began working as an assistant, and then as a teacher in the department of chemistry. In 1925 he was awarded a doctorate in chemistry summa cum laude (with the highest praise. - lat.). For the next two years, he worked as a researcher and was a member of the National Research Council at the California Institute of Technology. In 1927, Mr.. P. received the title of assistant professor, in 1929 - associate professor, and in 1931 - professor of chemistry.

Working all these years as a researcher, Pauling became a specialist in X-ray crystallography - the passage of X-rays through a crystal to form a characteristic pattern that can be used to judge the atomic structure of a given substance. Using this method, Linus studied the nature of chemical bonds in benzene and other aromatic compounds (compounds that typically contain one or more benzene rings and are aromatic). A Guggenheim Fellowship allowed him to spend an academic year studying quantum mechanics with Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich, Zurich and Copenhagen. Quantum mechanics, created by Schrödinger in 1926, which was called wave mechanics, and the exclusion principle expounded by Wolfgang Pauli in 1925, were to have a profound impact on the study of chemical bonds.

In 1928, Pauling put forward his theory of resonance, or hybridization, of chemical bonds in aromatic compounds, which was based on the concept of electron orbitals drawn from quantum mechanics. In the older model of benzene, which was still used from time to time for convenience, three of the six chemical bonds (binding electron pairs) between adjacent carbon atoms were single bonds, and the remaining three were double bonds. Single and double bonds alternated in the benzene ring. Thus, benzene could have two possible structures, depending on which bonds were single and which were double. It was known, however, that double bonds were shorter than single bonds, and X-ray diffraction showed that all bonds in a carbon molecule were of equal length. The resonance theory stated that all bonds between carbon atoms in the benzene ring were intermediate in character between single and double bonds. According to Pauling's model, benzene rings can be considered as hybrids of their possible structures. This concept has proven to be extremely useful in predicting the properties of aromatic compounds.

Over the next few years, Linus continued to study the physicochemical properties of molecules, especially those related to resonance. In 1934, he turned his attention to biochemistry, in particular to the biochemistry of proteins. Together with A.E. Mirsky, he formulated the theory of the structure and function of the protein, together with C.D. Corwell studied the effect of oxygenation (saturation with oxygen) on the magnetic properties of hemoglobin, the oxygen-containing protein in red blood cells.

When Artoo Noyes died in 1936, Pauling was appointed Dean of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and director of the Gates and Crellin Chemistry Laboratories at Caltech. While in these administrative positions, he initiated the study of the atomic and molecular structure of proteins and amino acids (the monomers that make up proteins) using X-ray crystallography, and in the academic 1937-1938. He was a lecturer in chemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

In 1942, he and his colleagues, having obtained the first artificial antibodies, succeeded in changing the chemical structure of certain blood proteins known as globulins. Antibodies are globulin molecules produced by specialized cells in response to antigens (foreign substances) such as viruses, bacteria, and toxins entering the body. An antibody is combined with a specific type of antigen that stimulates its production. Pauling correctly postulated that the three-dimensional structures of an antigen and its antibody are complementary and thus "responsible" for the formation of the antigen-antibody complex. In 1947, he and George W. Beadle received a five-year grant to study the mechanism by which the polio virus destroys nerve cells. For the next year, Pauling held a professorship at Oxford University.

Work on sickle cell anemia began in 1949, when he learned that the red blood cells of patients with this hereditary disease become sickle-shaped only in venous blood, where oxygen levels are low. On the basis of knowledge of the chemistry of hemoglobin P. immediately suggested that the sickle-shaped red cells are caused by a genetic defect in the depths of cellular hemoglobin. (The hemoglobin molecule is made up of an iron porphyrin called heme and a protein called globin.) This suggestion is clear evidence of Pauling's amazing scientific intuition. Three years later, the scientist was able to prove that normal hemoglobin and hemoglobin taken from patients with sickle cell anemia can be distinguished using electrophoresis, a method of separating different proteins in a mixture. This discovery confirmed P.'s belief that the cause of the anomaly lies in the protein part of the molecule.

In 1951, P. and R.B. Corey published the first complete description of the molecular structure of proteins. It was the result of research that lasted 14 long years. Using X-ray crystallography to analyze proteins in hair, fur, muscles, nails, and other biological tissues, they found that the chains of amino acids in a protein twisted around one another in a helical pattern. This description of the three-dimensional structure of proteins marked a major advance in biochemistry.

But not all scientific endeavors of Linus were successful. In the early 50s. he focused his attention on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the biological molecule that contains the genetic code. In 1953, when scientists around the world tried to establish the structure of DNA, P. published an article in which he described this structure as a triple helix, which is not true. A few months later, Francis Crick and James D. Watson published their now famous paper describing the DNA molecule as a double helix.

In 1954, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his study of the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the determination of the structure of compounds." In his Nobel Lecture, Pauling predicted that future chemists would "rely on a new structural chemistry, including the precisely defined geometric relationships between atoms in molecules and the rigorous application of new structural principles, and that through this technology, significant progress will be made in solving problems of biology and medicine with the help of chemical methods.

Although Pauling was a pacifist in his early years during the First World War, during the Second World War the scientist served as an official member of the National Defense Research Commission and worked on the creation of new rocket fuels and the search for new sources of oxygen for submarines and aircraft. As an officer of the Office of Research and Development, he made significant contributions to the development of plasma substitutes for blood transfusion and for the military. However, soon after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pauling began a campaign against the new type of weapon and in 1945-1946, as a member of the National Security Commission, he lectured on the dangers of nuclear war.

In 1946, he became one of the founders of the Extraordinary Committee of Atomic Scientists, established by 7 other eminent scientists in order to achieve a ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Four years later, the nuclear arms race had already picked up speed, and Pauling opposed his government's decision to build a hydrogen bomb, calling for an end to all atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. In the early 1950s, when both the US and the USSR tested hydrogen bombs and the level of radioactivity in the atmosphere increased, he used his considerable talent as a public speaker to publicize the possible biological and genetic consequences of radioactive fallout. The scientist's concern about the potential genetic danger was partly due to his research on the molecular basis of hereditary diseases. Pauling and 52 other Nobel laureates signed the Lineau Declaration in 1955 calling for an end to the arms race.

When in 1957 Pauling drafted an appeal demanding an end to nuclear testing, it was signed by over 11,000 scientists from 49 countries, including over 2,000 Americans. In January 1958, Linus presented this document to Dag Hammarskjöld, who was then Secretary General of the United Nations. His efforts contributed to the founding of the Pugwash Movement for Scientific Cooperation and International Security, whose first conference of supporters was held in 1957 in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada, and which eventually succeeded in facilitating the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty. . Such serious public and personal concern about the danger of contamination of the atmosphere with radioactive substances led to the fact that in 1958, despite the absence of any agreement, the USA, the USSR and Great Britain voluntarily stopped testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

However, Pauling's efforts to achieve a ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons met not only with support, but also with considerable resistance. Prominent American scientists such as Edward Teller and Willard F. Libby, both members of the US Atomic Energy Commission, have argued that Pauling exaggerates the biological effects of fallout. He also ran into political obstacles because of his alleged pro-Soviet sympathies. In the early 50s. the scientist had difficulty obtaining a passport (to travel abroad. – Red.), and he received a passport without any restrictions only after he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Ironically, during the same period, Pauling was also attacked in the Soviet Union, because his resonant theory of chemical bonding was considered contrary to Marxist teachings. (After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, this theory was recognized in Soviet science.) He was twice called (in 1955 and 1960) to the subcommittee on homeland security of the US Senate, where he was asked questions about his political views and political activities. In both cases, he denied that he had ever been a communist or sympathetic to Marxist views. In the second case (in 1960), he, at the risk of being accused of contempt for Congress, refused to name those who helped him collect signatures for the 1957 appeal. In the end, the case was dropped.

In June 1961, Pauling and his wife called a conference in Oslo, Norway against the spread of nuclear weapons. In September of the same year, despite P.'s appeal to Nikita Khrushchev, the USSR resumed atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and the following year, in March, the United States did it. He began monitoring radioactivity levels and in October 1962 made public information that showed that, due to tests carried out in the previous year, the level of radioactivity in the atmosphere had doubled compared to the previous 16 years. Pauling also drafted a proposed treaty to ban such tests. In July 1963, the USA, the USSR and Great Britain signed a nuclear test ban treaty based on P.

In 1963, Pauling was awarded the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize. In his opening speech on behalf of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Gunnar Jahn stated that Pauling "led an ongoing campaign not only against the testing of nuclear weapons, not only against the proliferation of these weapons, not only against their very use, but against any military action as a means of resolving international conflicts." In his Nobel Lecture titled "Science and Peace", Pauling expressed the hope that the nuclear test ban treaty would "begin a series of treaties which would lead to the creation of a new world where the possibility of war would be forever excluded." ".

The same year he received his second Nobel Prize, he retired from Caltech and became a research professor at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California. Here he was able to devote more time to the problems of international disarmament. In 1967, Pauling also took up a position as professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, hoping to spend more time doing research in molecular medicine. Two years later, he left and became a professor of chemistry at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. By this time, he had already retired from the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.

At the end of the 60s. Linus became interested in the biological effects of vitamin C. The scientist and his wife themselves began to regularly take this vitamin, while Pauling began to publicly advertise its use to prevent colds. In the monograph "Vitamin C and the Common Cold"("Vitamin C and the Common Cold"), which appeared in 1971, he summarized the practical evidence and theoretical calculations published in the current press in support of the therapeutic properties of vitamin C. In the early 70s. Pauling also formulated the theory of orthomolecular medicine, which emphasized the importance of vitamins and amino acids in maintaining an optimal molecular environment for the brain. These theories, which were widely known at the time, were not supported by the results of subsequent research and were largely rejected by specialists in medicine and psychiatry. Pauling, however, takes the view that the grounds for their counterarguments are far from flawless.

In 1973, Mr.. P. founded the Linus Pauling Medical Institute in Palo Alto. For the first two years he was its president and then became a professor there. He and his colleagues at the institute continue to conduct research into the therapeutic properties of vitamins, in particular the possibility of using vitamin C to treat cancer. In 1979 Pauling published a book "Cancer and Vitamin C"("Cancer and Vitamin C"), which claims that taking large doses of vitamin C helps prolong life and improve the condition of patients with certain types of cancer. However, reputable cancer researchers do not find his arguments convincing.

In 1922, Linus married Ava Helen Miller, one of his students at the Oregon State Agricultural College. The couple have three sons and a daughter. After the death of his wife in 1981, Pauling lives in their country house in Big Sur (California).

In addition to two Nobel Prizes, Pauling received many awards. Among them: the award for achievements in the field of pure chemistry of the American Chemical Society (1931), the Davy Medal of the Royal Society of London (1947), the Soviet government award - the international Lenin Prize "For the strengthening of peace among peoples" (1971), the national medal "For scientific Achievements” of the National Science Foundation (1975), the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1978), the Prize in Chemistry of the American National Academy of Sciences (1979) and the Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society (1984). The scientist was awarded honorary degrees from Chicago, Princeton, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge universities. Pauling is a member of many professional organizations. This is the American National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as scientific societies or academies in Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, India, Norway, Portugal, France, Austria and the USSR. He was president of the American Chemical Society (1948) and the Pacific Chapter of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1942-1945), and vice-president of the American Philosophical Society (1951-1954).

material carrier

Until the beginning of the 1940s, the main "candidates" for the role of the material structures of heredity were considered proteins, macromolecules of large molecular weight, consisting of a limited variety of monomers - amino acids. Monomers are interconnected by standard peptide bonds, and the entire diversity of proteins is determined by the composition and order of side radicals.

Comparable data for nucleic acids were obtained much later, and this was due to some dramatic circumstances. F.A. Levin, an American biochemist of Russian origin, played a key and controversial role in the identification of monomers, the bonds between them, as well as in the formation of general ideas about the role of nucleic acids.

At the same time, Levin is the author of the so-called "tetranucleotide hypothesis" based on early and rather inaccurate data on the molar concentrations of bases in nucleic acids. In 1908 - 1909. he and collaborators showed that nucleic acids from calf thymus and yeast have equal molar concentrations of all four nucleotides. This suggested that four different nucleotides are linked in series to form a standard tetranucleotide that repeats many times in the nucleic acid structure. In later versions, the hypothesis allowed for high polymericity of nucleic acids by repeating the tetranucleotide, but apparently excluded the possible combinatorics of nucleotides.

Thus, the "standard tetranucleotide brick" (M ~ 1500) allowed us to build only a dull, monotonous sequence. In this case, nucleic acids were not suitable for the role of the material structure of genes. However, most prominent biochemists accepted this hypothesis on faith, which delayed the development of molecular ideas about genes for a long time.

But in the 1940s, E. Chargaff and many other researchers subjected the tetranucleotide hypothesis to devastating criticism, and its author turned out to be a "scapegoat" for his delusion. According to historians of science F. Portugal and J. Cohen, it was the tetranucleotide hypothesis that prevented Levin from receiving the Nobel Prize for other works, which he undoubtedly deserved. Levin died in 1940, when the war had already begun, and questions of pure science were beyond the attention of most scientists.

Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 1940s it was already clear that nucleic acids (current DNA and RNA) can be highly polymeric (M ~ 500 thousand - 1 million). In the late 1940s, Chargaff showed that DNA of different species origin has a different composition of nucleotides, and their overall equimolarity is not fulfilled. Using a new method of paper chromatography, Chargaff found that there are other regular relationships between the molar concentrations of purines and pyrimidines: A=T and G=C. And although he did not explain these properties, it became quite clear that nucleic acid monomers are not tetranucleotides, but four standard nucleotides that have the same sugar-phosphate part involved in the formation of standard phosphodiester bonds and different bases. Their combinatorics allows for a huge variety of options.

However, even given these properties, the genetic role of DNA has yet to be proven. This was done in 1944 by O. Avery and his co-workers. Back in 1928, the English infectious disease doctor F. Griffiths discovered that pneumococci of one strain (non-virulent) acquire heritable virulence upon contact with a lysate of infectious bacteria killed by heating (transformation phenomenon). For more than 10 years, Avery and co-workers have been working on methods for fractionating bacterial lysate until, finally, they isolated an active fraction that matches DNA in terms of physicochemical properties. On the one hand, it was a sensation that refuted the tetranucleotide hypothesis (DNA had genetic properties), on the other hand, the interpretation of such a transformation was not unambiguous. DNA could be either a genetic material that recombines with the homologous genome of the recipient bacterium, or a mutagen that causes gene mutations (then the nature of the genes may be different), or a specific signal that switches the functional state of the gene (this variant was revealed later). J. Lederberg counted seven alternative hypotheses about the nature of transformation. Many geneticists have not understood the fundamental significance of Avery's work. For example, the outstanding cytologist A. Mirsky, who worked at the same Rockefeller Institute, sharply objected to the evidence of the transforming role of DNA.

However, a significant group of biochemists, geneticists and physicists have focused on the study of the chemistry, genetic role and molecular structure of DNA. Discussions stopped only after 1952, when A. Hershey and M. Chase showed that when a bacterium is infected E.coli In the T2 phage, the infectious principle is the almost pure DNA of phage 2. Avery died in 1955 without waiting for his Nobel Prize, which he undoubtedly deserved. In 1939 - 1940. A similar discovery was made by S. M. Gershenzon in Kyiv, showing that the introduction or feeding of foreign DNA to Drosophila causes an outbreak of mutations in wing traits.

double helix DNA

The next "single touch" that sparked the "spark of genius" took place in Cambridge, England, between two very different people. In the autumn of 1951, J. Watson arrived there, having just defended his doctoral dissertation with S. Luria at the University of Indiana (USA). He was a member of the "phage group" of M. Delbrück and was influenced by this legendary personality, as well as by E. Schrödinger's book "What is Life". His "interest in DNA grew out of a desire in college in his senior year to learn what a gene is."

Formally, Watson received a scholarship to study the methods of X-ray diffraction analysis of proteins in the group of M. Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. Then, in this group, the physicist F. Crick worked on the theory of X-ray diffraction. During the war, he was engaged in defense research in the Naval Department. In 1946, inspired by E. Schrödinger's book and L. Pauling's lecture, he decided to apply physics to biology.

So Watson and Crick ended up in the same room. Watson later recalled: " After talking with Francis, my fate was sealed. We quickly realized that in biology we intended to follow the same path. The central problem of biology was the gene and the metabolism it controlled. The main challenge was to understand gene replication and the way in which genes control protein synthesis. It was obvious that it was possible to start solving these problems only after the structure of the gene became clear. And that meant elucidating the structure of DNA".

"In Max's lab Perutz. there was a person who knew that DNA is more important than proteins - it was real luck.

Here is how F. Portugal and J. Cohen characterize this scientific tandem:

"The contrast between Watson and Crick might seem very great. Crick was 35 years old when they met in 1951 and did not yet have a doctorate. Watson was 23, received his doctorate unusually early at 22, and was invited to join the phage group. Crick was big and brilliant, Watson was skinny and angular. But they had a lot in common. Both were loners who, nevertheless, did not hide their strong ideas on many issues. Both had a pronounced interest in discovering the structure of the genetic material. But where their complementarity arose from different approaches - X-ray diffraction analysis and phage genetics - such a synthesis led to significant results. In this important respect, Watson served as a bridge between the informational and structural schools in molecular biology.".

To understand the reasons for the success of the collaboration between Watson and Crick, one must take into account some circumstances.

Firstly, not far from Cambridge, in London's Kings College, the largest English specialists in X-ray diffraction analysis of DNA, M. Wilkins and R. Franklin, worked. It was their experimental data that Watson and Crick used to substantiate and test their model.

Secondly, the spirit of competition with the leading American physical chemist Linus Pauling played a significant role for young researchers. At that time, Pauling's star was at its zenith: he was the author of the brilliant classic The Nature of the Chemical Bond (1939); together with G. Corey theoretically, with the help of molecular stereomodels, predicted the existence of alpha-helices in globular proteins. Since then, the idea of ​​a spiral seemed to "hang in the air" in relation to any macromolecules. Here is the opinion of J. Watson: " Spirals were the focus of the laboratory at the time, mainly because of Pauling's alpha helix."<...>A few days after my(Watson. - V.R. ) when we arrived, we already knew what we should do: follow the path of Pauling and defeat him with his own weapons". But Pauling was also actively considering options for molecular models of DNA.

Thirdly, by the beginning of the work, Crick already had experience in developing the theory of X-ray diffraction on spirals, which allowed him to instantly look for signs of helicity in X-ray diffraction photographs. In other words, he was prepared to search for spirals.

Fourth, Watson and Crick understood that the stakes were very high. It was about the molecular structure of genes - the key objects of biological organization. This requirement imposed a number of obvious requirements on any model. It was necessary to explain in molecular terms how genes perform their main functions: self-duplication, mutation, recording of information, control over protein synthesis, etc.

In particular, it was necessary to understand what is the mechanism of self-doubling (replication) of DNA. The genetic tradition, based on micrographs of the behavior of chromosomes in mitosis and meiosis, postulated the idea of ​​homologous recognition of similar genes and chromosome segments. Already in the model of N.K. Koltsov, chromosome replication is drawn as a homologous alignment of segments along the matrix. This requires certain molecular forces and relationships. Supporting this approach, the famous German theoretical physicist P. Jordan suggested that in addition to the well-known physicochemical "short-range interaction" (van der Waals forces, salt bridges, hydrogen bonds, etc.), there are still unknown quantum resonant "long-range forces", which are capable of attracting homologous structures to each other.

Pauling strongly objected to this. All the experience of structural chemistry and quantum physics told him that the imaginary "long-range forces" are a fiction. As for the "short-range forces", they require the closest contact between the interacting molecular surfaces. It is clear that the principle of interaction between antigen - antibody, enzyme - substrate, etc., widely known by that time, corresponded to this; lock and key principle. In other words, closely interacting surfaces must be mutually complementary. In 1940, Pauling and Delbrück published their arguments against Jordan in the journal Science.

The brainstorming went on for 18 months. It was accompanied by a rather complicated relationship between its participants. Thus, Watson and Crick met with a decisive rebuff from Franklin, although it was her data on the B-form of DNA that gave a key impetus to the development of the model and best matched the results of the simulation. The authors went through many dozens of possible spiral structures, but they all had some drawbacks.

Pauling also explored various variants of helical structures, but he settled on three-stranded helices, i.e. went the wrong way. The absence of direct contacts between Watson - Crick and Pauling allowed the first to make an "intellectual breakthrough". Even the case contributed to this. Pauling repeatedly asked for diffraction patterns to be sent to him, but Wilkins was in no hurry. And when Pauling was going to a conference in London to visit Cambridge and see everything with his own eyes, the US State Department did not issue him a visa (!). The reason for this was Pauling's active pacifist activity against nuclear tests.

In early 1953, Watson and Crick became acquainted (semi-legally!) with Franklin's latest data on X-ray diffraction on B-form DNA preparations under conditions of high humidity. They immediately recognized the signs of a spiral with a pitch of 34 A and a diameter of 20 A. Stereo models were urgently needed for verification, but the workshops delayed the production of metal parts simulating purines and pyrimidines. Then Watson cut them out of thick cardboard and began to lay them out on the plane of the table. It was here that he had an epiphany. He later recalled: And suddenly I noticed that a pair of adenine - thymine, connected by two hydrogen bonds, has exactly the same shape as a pair of guanine - cytosine, also connected by at least two hydrogen bonds.<...>If the purine always hydrogen bonds to the pyrimidine, then the two irregular base sequences fit nicely into a regular pattern at the center of the helix. In this case, adenine should always pair only with thymine, and guanine only with cytosine, and Chargaff's rules, therefore, unexpectedly turned out to be a consequence of the double-stranded structure of DNA. And most importantly, such a double helix suggested a much more acceptable replication scheme. The base sequences of the two interlaced strands are complementary to each other.<...>Therefore, it was very easy to imagine how one circuit could become a matrix for another.".

Within the next few days, a stereo model of double-stranded DNA was built. It turned out to be a right-handed helix with the opposite orientation of the chains.

"Two days later Maurice(Wilkins. - V.R. ) called us and said that, as he and Rosie made sure(Franklin. - V.R. ) radiographic evidence clearly supports the existence of a double helix".

"Pauling first heard about the double helix from Delbrück. Pauling, like Delbrück, was instantly captivated. ... The discovery of the double helix brought us not only joy, but also relief. This was incredibly interesting and immediately allowed us to make an important assumption about the mechanism of gene duplication.".

The Watson-Crick model, due to its undeniable merits, was quickly and universally recognized. She has also stood the test of time. With one blow, she solved many difficult problems; first of all explained Chargaff's rules and X-ray diffraction data. Chargaff himself, who was very skeptical of the Watson-Crick tandem, could not object to anything on the merits, his criticism was more like grumbling: " ... it seems to me that the great art and ingenuity that was spent on the construction of various hardly suitable models was essentially in vain".

The model established a matrix principle based on pairwise complementarity of nucleotides (i.e., on the principle of "close action"), from which a simple and natural pattern of matrix replication followed. It is clear that in this case copying of an individual matrix can be done in only two stages:

positive --> negative --> positive.

However, double-stranded helix solves this problem as well. The double strand is capable of exact copying in one step due to two coupled matrix processes, i.e. has the coveted genetic property - doubling by contact homologous alignment of segments on the matrix:

positive - negative --> positive - negative + positive - negative

Finally, the model, as it were, opened the way for understanding other fundamental genetic processes and properties. It turned out that genetic diversity can be reduced to variations in the order of monomers, as suggested by Koltsov, Delbrück, Schrödinger, and many others. Then the preservation of order ensures the conservatism of heredity. The DNA double strand, where the standard sugar-phosphate backbone is located on the outside, and all the specificity (hydrogen bonds of the bases) is hidden inside and less accessible to influence, perfectly met the expectations of geneticists. Changes in the order of the monomers, obviously, should have caused hereditary changes, i.e. mutations.

In 1962, J. Watson, F. Crick and M. Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for establishing the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its role in the transmission of information in living matter. Unfortunately, R. Franklin did not wait for such recognition, she died in 1958.

Let us evaluate the results obtained from the point of view of the information-cybernetic approach. The material carrier of genetic information was found - these are nucleic acids (DNA and, as it became clear later, RNA). An intermediate recipient of genetic information, proteins, has also been identified. Both have a number of common features: they are linear polymers built from a small variety of monomers - nucleotides and amino acids. In both cases, the monomers have a standard, universal part that allows them to be combined in sequences of arbitrary length and order. In addition, monomers have specific side groups (bases, amino acid radicals), the order of which determines the functional properties of the corresponding sequences. The variety of permutations is astronomical. Between monomers of polynucleotides there are special pairwise complementarity relations (A - T, G - C), which allow polynucleotides to perform template functions.

It is clear that the situation is very reminiscent of linguistic and other information systems, where information is encoded using the order of characters. There are alphabets (monomers), texts (sequences), the matrix principle of copying (complementarity). It can be expected that there are some encoding rules that are used by the cell.

"Scream and Gum"

With this verbal pun, N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky characterized the events that followed the decoding of the DNA structure. Watson and Crick, of course, well understood the genetic and informational meaning and significance of their model. As Watson says in his book: Literally all the facts available at that time convinced me that DNA serves as a template on which RNA chains are formed. In turn, RNA chains were a very likely candidate for the role of templates for protein synthesis.<...>The idea of ​​the immortality of the genes seemed to be true, and I hung a piece of paper on the wall above my desk with the inscription

DNA --> RNA --> Protein .

Arrows do not represent chemical transformations, but the transfer of genetic information..."

In 1958, Crick formulated this principle as the "central dogma" of molecular genetics.

However, soon after the publication of the model, an unexpected and fresh force entered the fray. It was the greatest theoretical physicist G.A.Gamov (in English transcription J.En.Gamov). In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Gamow was the pride of young Soviet theoretical physics. He, a graduate and postgraduate student of Leningrad University, a friend of L.D. Landau, was sent abroad to Göttingen (Germany) to M. Born, and then to Copenhagen (Denmark) to N. Bohr for a scientific internship. There he carried out a number of theoretical works of the highest class and was recognized as one of the most promising young physicists in Europe. Interestingly, one of his articles in 1930 was published jointly with the young German theoretical physicist Delbrück. And in 1932, when Gamow was not allowed to go abroad, his report to the Solvay Congress was presented by his friend Delbrück.

In 1932, on the proposal of V.A. Vernadsky and two other academicians, Gamow was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was 28 years old, he was sung by poets:

"... Soviet guy Gamov <...> the villain has already reached the atom"

(D. Poor).

But in 1933, having left for the next Solvay Congress, Gamow did not wait for the extension of the business trip and did not return, becoming a defector. For this great sin he was excommunicated from the Academy of Sciences, from the Motherland. And posthumously restored only in 1990.

Gamow owned two major discoveries: the theory of alpha decay and the cosmological theory of the "hot Universe" - works of the Nobel level. Gamow considered his third main achievement to be the formulation of the problem of the genetic code.

Here is how Gamow himself described this moment: “Having read in Nature in May 1953 an article by Watson and Crick, which explained how hereditary information is stored in DNA molecules in the form of a sequence of four types of simple atomic groups known as “bases” (adenine , guanine, thymine and cytosine), I wondered how this information is translated into a sequence of twenty amino acids that form protein molecules.The simple idea that came to my mind was that you can get 20 out of 4 by counting the number of all possible triplets formed from four different entities.Take, for example, a deck of playing cards in which we pay attention only to the suit of the card.How many triplets of the same kind can be obtained?Four, of course: three of hearts, three of diamonds, three of spades and three of clubs How many triplets with two cards of the same suit and one different? Let's say we have four choices for the third card. So we have 4x3 = 12 possibilities. In addition, we have four Four triples with all three different cards. So 4+12+4=20, which is the exact number of amino acids we wanted to get."

Thus, Gamow was the first to formulate the problem of the genetic code. Genetic information is written in polynucleotides as a sequence of four types of characters: A, T, G and C. Then it is recoded into a sequence of 20 types (amino acids). Encoding groups of characters can only be triplet. The rules for matching triplet groups of nucleotide symbols (hereinafter referred to as codons) and amino acid symbols form the genetic code. The main task is to decipher this code, including explaining the origin of the number 20, having 64 triplets available.

To understand this turn of thought, we must take into account some circumstances.

First, Gamow compared the nucleotide sequence with a long number written in the quaternary counting system. He jokingly called it the "animal number", referring to the religious legend from the "Apocalypse", where the name of the Antichrist ("the beast from the abyss") is hidden under an unknown number. Deciphering the "animal number" is necessary to defeat the beast. In addition, 20 - the number of amino acids - he called the "magic number", suggesting that explaining it from the internal structure of the code would solve the problem.

The first paper by Gamow and Tomkins was sent to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, and was rejected by the editors because Tomkins is a mythical character in Gamow's popular books and not a real person. This article was published in 1954 in the Reports of the Danish Academy of Sciences in Copenhagen on behalf of one Gamow.

Secondly, in the summer of 1953, Watson and Crick compiled a standard list of 20 amino acids directly involved in protein synthesis, and excluded their secondary derivatives. Subsequently, this list was canonized.

Thirdly, Gamow used card terminology very casually. What are at least such passages worth: " Take, for example, a deck of playing cards..." or " Let's say we're playing "simplistic poker..." and further in the text. The image was very accurate. Indeed, we have four suits - two black ones with legs (purines) and two red ones without legs (pyrimidines). The sequence of nucleotides can be represented in a painfully familiar way.

Nature, as it were, plays "simplified poker" with the theoretician, the game is gambling, and winning is the biggest discovery of the 20th century. It is clear that the souls of the theorists trembled! Schrödinger's predictions came true! Interest in the problem quickly reached its apogee. An optimistic stage began in the study of the genetic code.

Fourthly, Gamow tried to use the methods of deciphering spy codes, in which he had some experience, to solve the problem of the genetic code. He first proposed the "overlapping rhombic code" hypothesis, where certain patterns could be traced in the structure of known polypeptides. In his autobiography, Gamow wrote: ...the work was as difficult as deciphering a secret military code based on only two short messages obtained by spies. Because at that time I(Gamov. - V.R. ) was a consultant to the United States Department of the Navy in Washington, I went to the admiral under whose command I was and asked if a top-secret cryptographic group could be tasked with deciphering the Japanese code. As a result, three people appeared in my department at the George Washington University ...

I gave them a problem, and after a few weeks they informed me that it had no solution. The same conclusion was reached by my biologist friends: Martinas Ichas, a native of Lithuania, and Sydney Brenner, a native of South Africa. This eliminated the possibility of overlapping code..."

In general, the same fate befell other hypotheses. Gamow and Ichas proposed the hypothesis of a "combinatorial" code, where all triplets of the same composition were considered synonyms; 64 triplets formed 20 groups (magic number!); the code was degenerate, the triplets in the text did not overlap. Very similar to the truth! But this code was also rejected.

Crick, Griffiths (the nephew of the discoverer of the transformation) and L. Orgel proposed the idea of ​​a "code without commas", when the triplets in the text are not separated by any signs, but are read in a unique way: coding - 20 heterotriplets, and all their cyclic permutations (40) - non-coding. The four homotriplets in this case are also non-coding. This option was also not confirmed, although the problem of "codes without commas" itself is still being studied by mathematicians.

Many outstanding mathematicians, physicists, chemists, engineers, as well as scientific youth participated in this mental competition. However, despite the ingenuity of many suggestions, they all turned out to be wrong.

"Nature is smart..."- concluded Gamow after 10 years.

The optimistic phase of studying the genetic code is over. The time has come for an experimental solution, which in the end turned out to be very successful and completely different. Gamow's name has almost disappeared from the scientific literature on molecular biology. In 1968 he died.

The significance of Gamow's work was very precisely formulated by Crick: " The importance of Gamow's work was that it was a truly abstract coding theory that was not overloaded with a mass of unnecessary chemical details... In other words, it was an information-cybernetic approach in its purest form, which later fully justified itself in the development of the theory of molecular genetic control systems and genetic language.

The molecular foundations of life were at the center of L. Pauling's scientific interests. Together with his colleagues, L. Pauling performed a number of brilliant studies on the structure of the protein and found that sickle cell anemia is associated with the formation of abnormal hemoglobin in human erythrocytes. Sickle cell anemia was called "Molecular disease" by L. Pauling. According to the researcher, a change in the structure and function of macromolecules or a lack of physiologically active molecules in the body can cause health problems and a number of human diseases. In this regard, L. Pauling's interest in the problems of substitution therapy, in particular, in vitamin therapy, aimed at the concept of deficiency in the body of compounds that ensure the optimal level of physiological processes, is understandable. With good reason, among the most important activators of life processes and means that increase the body's resistance to colds and infectious diseases, Pauling considers vitamin C.

Human and other mutants

In front of me is a pharmacy vial with a label: "Ascorbic acid 0.05 g. Children 1 pc., Adults 2-3 pcs." Checking tables...

To live longer and feel better, you need to swallow at least twenty of these yellow tablets a day, and preferably fifty or a hundred at once.

This is some nonsense. However, I used to respect Linus Pauling, one of the fathers of modern biochemistry, the discoverer of the protein alpha helix. As C.S. Lewis said, if a person who made an incredible statement was reasonable and truthful before, we have no right to immediately call him a liar or a fool. We should at least listen to his arguments.

Everyone knows that some substances necessary for a person are not synthesized in the body, but come from outside. First of all, these are vitamins and essential amino acids, the most important components of good nutrition (not in a crisis, let it be said). But few people ask themselves the question: how is it that more than a dozen absolutely essential substances are not synthesized in our body? After all, lichens and lower fungi live on a minimum of organic matter and create everything they need in their own biochemical kitchen. Why don't we do that?

Substances that are obtained in the external environment (which means that they can act irregularly or completely disappear) would hardly occupy important "posts" in metabolism. Probably, our ancestors were able to synthesize both vitamins and all amino acids. Later, the genes encoding the necessary enzymes were damaged by mutations, but the mutants did not die if they found food that made up for the deficiency. They even gained an advantage over their wild relatives: digesting food and removing waste products requires less energy than de novo synthesis of a useful substance. Trouble began only with a change in diet ...

Obviously, something similar happened with other species. In addition to humans and great apes, other studied primates (for example, squirrel monkey, rhesus monkey), guinea pigs, some bats, and 15 species of birds cannot synthesize ascorbic acid. And in many other animals (including rats, mice, cows, goats, cats and dogs) everything is in order with ascorbic acid.

It is interesting that both among guinea pigs and among people there are individuals who do well without ascorbic acid or need much less of it. The most famous of these people is Antonio Pythagegga, companion and chronicler of Magellan. In his ship's log, it is noted that during the trip on the flagship "Trinidad" 25 out of 30 people fell ill with scurvy, while Pythagegga himself, "thank God, did not experience such an illness." Modern experiments with volunteers have also shown that there are people with a reduced need for vitamin C: they do not eat fruits or greens on duty and feel good. Perhaps there were changes in their genes that returned activity, or other mutations appeared, allowing them to more fully absorb vitamin C from food. But for now, let's remember the main thing: the need for ascorbic acid is individual.

Fig.1

The conversion of ascorbic acid to dehydroascorbate is necessary for the normal course of some of the most important cellular reactions. The effect of vitamin C as a stimulant of the immune system is not yet fully understood, but the fact of stimulation is beyond doubt.

A bit of biochemistry

Why is this irreplaceable substance needed at all? The main role of ascorbic acid (more precisely, ascorbate ion, since this acid dissociates in our internal environment) is participation in the hydroxylation of biomolecules (Fig. 1). In many cases, in order for an enzyme to attach an OH group to a molecule, the ascorbate ion must simultaneously be oxidized to dehydroascorbate. (That is, vitamin C does not work catalytically, but is consumed like other reagents.)

The most important reaction that vitamin C provides is collagen synthesis. From this protein, in fact, our body is woven. Collagen strands and meshes form connective tissues, collagen is found in the skin, bones and teeth, in the walls of blood vessels and the heart, in the vitreous body of the eyes. And in order for all this armature to be assembled from the precursor protein, procollagen, certain amino acids in its chains (proline and lysine) must receive OH groups. When there is not enough ascorbic acid, there is a deficiency of collagen: the growth of the body, the renewal of aging tissues, and the healing of wounds stop. As a result - scurvy ulcers, tooth loss, damage to the walls of blood vessels and other terrible symptoms.

Another reaction in which ascorbate is involved, the conversion of lysine to carnitine, takes place in the muscles, and carnitine itself is necessary for muscle contractions. Hence fatigue and weakness in C-avitaminosis. In addition, the body uses the hydroxylating action of ascorbate to convert harmful compounds into harmless ones. So, vitamin C contributes very well to the removal of cholesterol from the body: the more vitamin a person takes, the faster cholesterol is converted into bile acids. Similarly, bacterial toxins are eliminated faster.

The reverse process - the reduction of ascorbate from dehydroascorbate - is apparently associated with the action of synergistic vitamins C (that is, enhancing the effect of its intake): many of these vitamins, such as E, have reducing properties. Interestingly, the reduction of ascorbate from semidehydroascorbate is also involved in a very important process: the synthesis of dopamine, norepinephrine, and adrenaline from tyrosine.

Finally, vitamin C causes physiological effects, the mechanism of which is not yet fully understood, but their presence has been clearly demonstrated. The most famous of these is the stimulation of the immune system. An increase in the number of lymphocytes, and the fastest movement of phagocytes to the site of infection (if the infection is local), and some other factors contribute to the strengthening of the immune response. It is shown that in the patient's body with regular intake of vitamin C, the production of interferon increases.

From cancer to hay fever

From what was said in the previous chapter, it is easy to calculate what diseases vitamin C should prevent. We will not talk about scurvy, because we hope that it does not threaten our readers. (Although even in developed countries, people sometimes get scurvy. The reason, as a rule, is not the lack of money for fruits, but the laziness and indifference of the patient. Oranges, of course, are expensive, but currants in summer and sauerkraut in winter have not yet ruined anyone.)

However, scurvy is an extreme case of beriberi C. The need for this vitamin increases in many other cases. Strengthening the immune response and active collagen synthesis is the healing of wounds and burns, and postoperative rehabilitation, and inhibition of the growth of malignant tumors. As you know, in order to grow, tumors secrete the enzyme hyaluronidase into the intercellular space, which “looses” the surrounding tissues. By accelerating the synthesis of collagen, the body could counteract this assault, localize the tumor and, perhaps, even stifle it in the collagen networks.

Of course, a simple and publicly available remedy for cancer does not inspire confidence. But it must be emphasized that Pauling himself never urged cancer patients to replace all types of therapy with loading doses of ascorbic acid, but suggested using both. And not to try a remedy that could theoretically help, it would be criminal. Back in the 1970s, Pauling and the Scottish physician Ivan Cameron conducted several series of experiments at the Vail of Leven clinic in Loch Lomondside. The results were so impressive that soon Cameron ceased to single out a "control group" among his patients - he considered it immoral for the sake of the purity of the experiment to deprive people of a medicine that had proven its suitability. (fig.2).

Fig.2 The effect of overdose of ascorbic acid in eight types of cancer.

In the control group (shown as a smooth line), no one managed to sleep, and among the patients of Pauling and Cameron there are recovered

Everyone knows about the treatment of influenza and colds "according to Pauling". Regular intake of large doses of ascorbic acid reduces the incidence. Overdoses at the first symptoms prevent the disease, and overdoses taken late make it easier. No one seriously argues with these provisions of Pauling. Disputes are only about how many percent and under what conditions of admission the percentage of cases is reduced and recovery is accelerated. (We'll talk about this later.) A decrease in temperature after taking vitamin C is caused by its anti-inflammatory effect - inhibition of the synthesis of specific signaling substances, prostaglandins. (So ​​victims of hay fever and other allergy sufferers may also benefit from ascorbic acid.)

Many antihistamines, such as aspirin, work in a similar way. With one "but": the synthesis of one of the prostaglandins, namely PGE1, ascorbic acid does not inhibit, but stimulates. Meanwhile, it is he who enhances specific immunity.

Daily dose according to the Ministry of Health and according to the gorilla

In a word, even the most implacable opponents of Pauling do not doubt that vitamin C is good for health. There has been a fierce debate for more than thirty years only about the amount in which it should be taken.

First of all, where did the generally accepted norms come from - daily doses of vitamin C, which appear in encyclopedias and reference books? The US Academy of Sciences recommended daily allowance for an adult male is 60 mg. Our norms vary depending on gender, age and profession of a person: 60 - 110 mg for men and 55 - 80 for women. With these and large doses, there is neither scurvy nor pronounced hypovitaminosis (fatigue, bleeding gums). According to statistics, in people who consume at least 50 mg of vitamin C, signs of old age appear 10 years later than in those whose consumption does not reach this minimum (the dependence here is not smooth, but jumpy).

However, the minimum and optimal dose are not the same thing, and if a person does not have scurvy, this does not mean that he is completely healthy. We, unfortunate mutants, unable to provide ourselves with this vital substance, should be happy with any amount of it. But how much vitamin C is needed for complete happiness?

The content of ascorbic acid in the body (as well as other substances necessary for all organs and tissues) is often expressed in milligrams per unit weight of the animal. In the body of a rat, 26 - 58 mg of ascorbic acid is synthesized per kilogram. (Fortunately, there are no such large rats, but in kilograms it is more convenient to compare data for different species.) If converted to the average human weight (70 kg), this will give 1.8 - 4.1 g - an order of magnitude closer to Pauling than official standards! Similar data were obtained for other animals.

Ascorbic acid - vitamin C

(1901 - 1994) Pauling's name is included in the list of the 20 greatest scientists of all time, compiled by a survey of scientists (along with Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein). Only two people - Pauling and Einstein - represent the passing century in this list. Pauling is a scientist of rare breadth of interest and depth of knowledge. According to Einstein, he is a "true genius".

Everyone knows that some substances necessary for a person are not synthesized in the body, but come from outside. First of all, these are vitamins and essential amino acids, the most important components of good nutrition. But few people ask themselves the question: how is it that more than a dozen absolutely essential substances are not synthesized in our body? After all, lichens and lower fungi live on a minimum of organic matter and create everything they need in their own biochemical kitchen. Why don't we do that?

Substances that are obtained in the external environment (which means that they can act irregularly or completely disappear) would hardly occupy important "posts" in metabolism. Probably, our ancestors were able to synthesize both vitamins and all amino acids. Later, the genes encoding the necessary enzymes were damaged by mutations, but the mutants did not die if they found food that made up for the deficiency. They even gained an advantage over their wild relatives: digesting food and removing waste products requires less energy than de novo synthesis of a useful substance. Trouble began only with a change in diet ...

Obviously, something similar happened with other species. In addition to humans and great apes, other studied primates (for example, squirrel monkey, rhesus monkey), guinea pigs, some bats, and 15 species of birds cannot synthesize ascorbic acid. And in many other animals (including rats, mice, cows, goats, cats and dogs) everything is in order with ascorbic acid.

It is interesting that both among guinea pigs and among people there are individuals who do well without ascorbic acid or need much less of it. The most famous of these people is Antonio Pythagegga, companion and chronicler of Magellan. In his ship's log, it is noted that during the trip on the flagship "Trinidad" 25 out of 30 people fell ill with scurvy, while Pythagegga himself, "thank God, did not experience such an illness." Modern experiments with volunteers have also shown that there are people with a reduced need for vitamin C: they do not eat fruits or greens on duty and feel good. It is possible that corrections occurred in their genes that returned activity, or other mutations appeared that allow them to more fully absorb vitamin C from food. But for now, let's remember the main thing: the need for ascorbic acid is individual

The conversion of ascorbic acid to dehydroascorbate is necessary for the normal course of some of the most important cellular reactions. The effect of vitamin C as a stimulant of the immune system is not yet fully understood, but the fact of stimulation is beyond doubt.

A bit of biochemistry

Why is this irreplaceable substance needed at all? The main role of ascorbic acid (more precisely, ascorbate ion, since this acid dissociates in our internal environment) is participation in the hydroxylation of biomolecules (Fig. 1). In many cases, in order for an enzyme to attach an OH group to a molecule, the ascorbate ion must simultaneously be oxidized to dehydroascorbate. (That is, vitamin C does not work catalytically, but is consumed like other reagents.)

The most important reaction that vitamin C provides is collagen synthesis. From this protein, in fact, our body is woven. Collagen strands and meshes form connective tissues, collagen is found in the skin, bones and teeth, in the walls of blood vessels and the heart, in the vitreous body of the eyes. And in order for all this armature to be assembled from the precursor protein, procollagen, certain amino acids in its chains (proline and lysine) must receive OH groups. When there is not enough ascorbic acid, there is a deficiency of collagen: the growth of the body, the renewal of aging tissues, and the healing of wounds stop. As a result - scurvy ulcers, tooth loss, damage to the walls of blood vessels and other terrible symptoms.

Another reaction in which ascorbate is involved, the conversion of lysine to carnitine, takes place in the muscles, and carnitine itself is necessary for muscle contractions. Hence fatigue and weakness in C-avitaminosis. In addition, the body uses the hydroxylating action of ascorbate to convert harmful compounds into harmless ones. So, vitamin C contributes very well to the removal of cholesterol from the body: the more vitamin a person takes, the faster cholesterol is converted into bile acids. Similarly, bacterial toxins are eliminated faster.

The reverse process - the reduction of ascorbate from dehydroascorbate - is apparently associated with the action of synergistic vitamins C (that is, enhancing the effect of its intake): many of these vitamins, such as E, have reducing properties. Interestingly, the reduction of ascorbate from semidehydroascorbate is also involved in a very important process: the synthesis of dopamine, norepinephrine, and adrenaline from tyrosine.

Finally, vitamin C causes physiological effects, the mechanism of which is not yet fully understood, but their presence has been clearly demonstrated. The most famous of these is the stimulation of the immune system. An increase in the number of lymphocytes, and the fastest movement of phagocytes to the site of infection (if the infection is local), and some other factors contribute to the strengthening of the immune response. It is shown that in the patient's body with regular intake of vitamin C, the production of interferon increases.

From cancer to hay fever

From what was said in the previous chapter, it is easy to calculate what diseases vitamin C should prevent. We will not talk about scurvy, because we hope that it does not threaten our readers. (Although even in developed countries, people sometimes get scurvy. The reason, as a rule, is not the lack of money for fruits, but the laziness and indifference of the patient. Oranges, of course, are expensive, but currants in summer and sauerkraut in winter have not yet ruined anyone.)

However, scurvy is an extreme case of beriberi C. The need for this vitamin increases in many other cases. Strengthening the immune response and active collagen synthesis is the healing of wounds and burns, and postoperative rehabilitation, and inhibition of the growth of malignant tumors. As you know, in order to grow, tumors secrete the enzyme hyaluronidase into the intercellular space, which “looses” the surrounding tissues. By accelerating the synthesis of collagen, the body could counteract this assault, localize the tumor and, perhaps, even stifle it in the collagen networks.

Of course, a simple and widely available remedy for cancer does not inspire confidence. But it must be emphasized that Pauling himself never urged cancer patients to replace all types of therapy with loading doses of ascorbic acid, but suggested using both. And it would be criminal not to try a remedy that could theoretically help. Back in the 1970s, Pauling and the Scottish physician Ivan Cameron conducted several series of experiments at the Vail of Leven clinic in Loch Lomondside. The results were so impressive that Cameron soon ceased to single out a "control group" among his patients - he considered it immoral for the sake of the purity of the experiment to deprive people of a medicine that proved its suitability. In the control group, no one was saved, and among the patients of Pauling and Cameron there are those who have recovered

Similar results were obtained by Dr. Fukumi Morishige in Japan, at the oncology clinic in Fukuoka. According to Cameron, in 25% of patients who received 10 g of ascorbic acid per day at an advanced stage of cancer, tumor growth slowed down, in 20% the tumor ceased to change, in 9% it regressed, and in 1% complete regression was observed. Pauling's ideological opponents sharply criticize his work in this area, but dozens of human lives are a weighty argument.

Everyone knows about the treatment of influenza and colds "according to Pauling". Regular intake of large doses of ascorbic acid reduces the incidence. Overdoses at the first symptoms prevent the disease, and overdoses taken late make it easier. No one seriously argues with these provisions of Pauling. Disputes are only about how many percent and under what conditions of admission the percentage of cases is reduced and recovery is accelerated. (We'll talk about this later.) A decrease in temperature after taking vitamin C is caused by its anti-inflammatory effect - inhibition of the synthesis of specific signaling substances, prostaglandins. (So ​​victims of hay fever and other allergy sufferers may also benefit from ascorbic acid.)

Many antihistamines, such as aspirin, work in a similar way. . With one "but": the synthesis of one of the prostaglandins, namely PGE1, ascorbic acid does not inhibit, but stimulates. Meanwhile, it is he who enhances specific immunity.

Daily dose according to the Ministry of Health and according to the gorilla

In a word, even the most implacable opponents of Pauling do not doubt that vitamin C is good for health. There has been a fierce debate for more than thirty years only about the amount in which it should be taken.

First of all, where did the generally accepted norms come from - daily doses of vitamin C, which appear in encyclopedias and reference books? The US Academy of Sciences recommended daily allowance for an adult male is 60 mg. Our norms vary depending on gender, age and profession of a person: 60 - 110 mg for men and 55 - 80 for women. With these and large doses, there is neither scurvy nor pronounced hypovitaminosis (fatigue, bleeding gums). According to statistics, in people who consume at least 50 mg of vitamin C, signs of old age appear 10 years later than in those whose consumption does not reach this minimum (the dependence here is not smooth, but jumpy).

However, the minimum and optimal dose are not the same thing, and if a person does not have scurvy, this does not mean that he is completely healthy. We, unfortunate mutants, unable to provide ourselves with this vital substance, should be happy with any amount of it. But how much vitamin C is needed for complete happiness?

The content of ascorbic acid in the body (as well as other substances necessary for all organs and tissues) is often expressed in milligrams per unit weight of the animal. In the body of a rat, 26 - 58 mg of ascorbic acid is synthesized per kilogram. (Fortunately, there are no such large rats, but in kilograms it is more convenient to compare data for different species.) If converted to the average human weight (70 kg), this will give 1.8 - 4.1 g - an order of magnitude closer to Pauling than official standards! Similar data were obtained for other animals.

The gorilla, which, like us, is defective in the synthesis of ascorbic acid, but, unlike us, sits on a vegetarian diet, consumes about 4.5 g of vitamin C per day. (True, it must be borne in mind that the average gorilla weighs more average person.) And if a person strictly adhered to a plant-based diet, he would receive from two to nine grams of ascorbic acid for his 2500 calories necessary for life. Eating one currant and fresh pepper, you can eat all 15 grams. It turns out that "horse doses" are quite physiological and correspond to the usual healthy metabolism.

However, most people have less free time than gorillas. Business will not allow us to chew on low-calorie fresh greens, vegetables and fruits all day long. And a vegetarian diet containing cooked foods will not improve the situation. The usual full-fledged daily diet without raw food and other heroism gives only about 100 mg. Even if you put cabbage salad in a bowl and wash it down with orange juice.

Thus, modern city dwellers have no choice but to supplement with vitamin C. We fell into the trap set by evolution - first we lost our own mechanism for the synthesis of ascorbic acid, and then we learned to hunt and set out on the path of civilization, which led us away from greens and fruits, laid high primates, directly to scurvy and flu. But the same achievements of civilization gave us biochemistry and organic synthesis, which allows us to obtain cheap and commonly available vitamins. Why not take advantage of this?

"Any drug in large doses becomes a poison. Physicians have long known hypervitaminosis - diseases caused by an excess of vitamin in the body. It is likely that Pauling's patient, starting to be treated for one disease, will earn another." This is a fundamental question for Pauling. In his books, he often recalls how in the 60s, while studying the biochemistry of mental illness, he learned about the work of Canadian doctors who gave shock doses of vitamin B3 (up to 50 g per day) to patients with schizophrenia. Pauling drew attention to the paradoxical combination of properties: high biological activity with minimal toxicity. At the same time, he called vitamins and similar compounds "orthomolecular substances" to distinguish them from other drugs that do not fit so easily into natural metabolism.

Vitamins in general, and ascorbic acid in particular, writes Pauling, are much less poisonous than common cold remedies. Dozens of people are poisoned to death by aspirin every year, but not a single case of ascorbic acid poisoning has been observed. As for the excess in the body: hypervitaminosis A, D have been described, but no one has yet described hypervitaminosis C. The only unpleasant effect when it is used in large doses is a laxative effect.

"Excess ascorbic acid promotes stone formation, is harmful to the liver, reduces insulin production. Treatment with overdose of ascorbic acid cannot be used if the patient needs to maintain an alkaline urine reaction." Talk about the dangers of vitamin C is still going on at the level of emotional opposition of "pills" and "natural". There was not a single correct, well-designed experiment that would convincingly demonstrate this harm. And in cases where for some reason it is undesirable to take large doses of an acidic substance, you can take, for example, sodium ascorbate. (It is easy to prepare by dissolving a portion of ascorbic acid in a glass of water or juice and, after “extinguishing” it with soda, immediately drink it.) Ascorbate is just as cheap and just as effective, and its reaction is alkaline.

"It makes no sense to take the huge doses of vitamin C that Pauling recommends, since the excess is still not absorbed, but is excreted from the body in the urine and feces." Indeed, when ascorbic acid is consumed in small amounts (up to 150 mg per day), its concentration in the blood is approximately proportional to consumption (about 5 mg / liter for every 50 mg swallowed), and with an increase in dose, this concentration increases more slowly, but the content of ascorbate in the urine increases. . But it cannot be otherwise. The primary urine filtered in the renal tubules is in equilibrium with the blood plasma, and many valuable substances enter it - not only ascorbate, but also, for example, glucose. Then the urine is concentrated, water is reabsorbed, and special molecular pumps return to the bloodstream all the valuable substances that it is a pity to lose, including ascorbate. With the consumption of about 100 mg of ascorbic acid per day, more than 99% returns to the blood. Obviously, the operation of the pump ensures the most complete assimilation of doses close to the minimum: a further increase in power is too high for evolutionary standards.

It is clear that the greater the initial (immediately after digestion of food) concentration of ascorbic acid in the blood, the greater the loss. But still, even at doses of more than 1 gram, three-quarters of the vitamin is absorbed, and at huge "Pauling" doses (more than 10 grams), about 38% of the vitamin remains in the blood. In addition, ascorbic acid in urine and feces prevents the development of colon and bladder cancer.

"Overdose of ascorbic acid prevents conception, and in pregnant women can cause miscarriage." We give the floor to Linus Pauling himself. "The basis for such claims was a short note by two doctors from the Soviet Union, Samborskaya and Ferdman (1966). They reported that twenty women aged 20 to 40 years with a delay of menstruation from 10 to 50 days were orally given 6 g of ascorbic acid on each of three consecutive days and that 16 of them resumed menstruating after that I wrote Samborskaya and Ferdman a letter asking if they had taken any pregnancy test, but instead of replying they sent me another copy of their article" .

This is how myths are born. And in America, ascorbic acid in combination with bioflavonoids and vitamin K is prescribed just to prevent miscarriage. Ascorbic acid in large doses is also used to prevent pregnancy overshoot, in the last weeks of the term. But in these cases, its action is rather normalizing than vice versa. And normally, a pregnant woman really needs ascorbic acid: when a child grows, collagen synthesis is in full swing. Back in 1943, it was found that the concentration of ascorbate in the blood of the umbilical cord is about four times higher than the concentration in the blood of the mother: the growing body selectively "sucks out" the right substance. For expectant mothers, even official medicine recommends an increased rate of ascorbic acid (for example, tablets for pregnant and lactating women "Lady's formula" contain 100 mg of it). And even Russian doctors sometimes advise pregnant women to take ascorbic acid so as not to get sick with the flu: at the first, weakest symptoms or after contact with the patient - one and a half grams, on the second and third day - one gram.

One tablet per cigarette

So, the rate of ascorbic acid according to Pauling is 6 - 18 g per day. But still six or eighteen? Why such a spread and how much should you personally take?

The attentive reader, of course, drew attention to the discrepancy in the previous chapter: if every 50 mg of ascorbic acid increases its concentration in the blood by 5 mg / liter, and the volume of blood in a person is 4 - 6 liters, then why is it said about 99% assimilation? In fact, everything is correct: about half of vitamin C is immediately absorbed by the cells and tissues that need it. But how do you know exactly how much vitamin they need? We said that the need for ascorbic acid is purely individual. It depends on body weight, and on physical activity, and on the state of health of the patient, and on his personal biochemical characteristics (for example, on how effective the reabsorption mechanism is).

The scientific method is a stress test: take a certain amount of ascorbic acid (say, 1 g) and then measure its concentration in the urine for 6 hours. So you can determine how intensively the tissues absorb the vitamin and what proportion of it remains in the body. For most people, 20-25% will end up in the urine. But if there is no ascorbic acid> / I> in the urine at all or there is very little, this means that a person needs a large dose.

An easier way is to take the daily dose at one time and increase it until you feel a laxative effect. Pauling believes that this "limit of intestinal tolerance" clearly correlates with the body's true need for ascorbic acid. (Unfortunately, Pauling does not say how to correct those who have stool problems without ascorbic acid.) Usually the effect occurs in the range of 4-15 grams, but seriously ill people can consume much more.

Interestingly, in the same person, the need for ascorbic acid varies depending on whether he is healthy or sick. An increased need for ascorbic acid is observed in bacterial infections, mental illness, and heavy smokers. It has been experimentally shown that each smoked cigarette destroys 2.5 mg of vitamin C. And then, gentlemen, smokers, consider for yourself how much you owe your body for half a pack a day ...

An important note: those who have started taking large doses of vitamin C should keep in mind that it is undesirable to stop taking it - it can make you feel worse (Pauling himself calls this the "rollback effect"). But isn't it better to get into a biochemical dependence on a vitamin than on cigarettes and alcohol?

In general, whether or not we agree with Pauling about overdoses, his argument helps to face the truth. Naturally, together with food, we, workaholics of troubled times, will not receive even the minimum required amount of ascorbic acid. At least one yellow pill must be taken.

Reminder:

vitamin C in foods is destroyed faster when heated with air, in an alkaline environment, and also when in contact with even trace amounts of iron and especially copper. Therefore, try to use enamelware; it is better to knead the berries with a wooden spoon than to rub through a sieve or twist in a meat grinder. It is not bad to add a pinch of citric acid to the compote. In meals high in protein or starch, vitamin C is better preserved, as proteins bind copper.

Vitamin C is also reduced due to exposure to light, smoking and caffeine.

The year 2001 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding American biochemist Linus Pauling (1901 - 1994). Pauling, who ranks with Albert Einstein as one of the foremost scientific minds of the 20th century, has been honored with two - do the math! - two full, unshared Nobel Prizes. The first, in 1954, he received in chemistry for his monumental contribution to the development of the theory of the nature of the chemical bond, and the second, in 1962, the Nobel Peace Prize for his fearless speeches against atomic tests in the atmosphere and the disclosure of the serious danger that humanity is exposed to congenital malformations and miscarriages. We are all extremely indebted to Dr. Pauling for having, armed with the knowledge and understanding of radiochemistry, rebelled against the general assurances of the superpowers that downplayed the dangers of atomic testing. This is a man of great importance, both in science and in the cause of peace.

Not many people know that he devoted the last thirty years of his long and colorful career to the study of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and the breadth of its clinical application. Dr. Pauling's interest in ascorbic acid began about thirty years ago, and even then by accident. Apparently, he spoke in New York and said in his speech that he would like to live another twenty-five years (then he was about sixty-five) to see how some of the principles he put forward were carried out. He hopes, Pauling said, that he can live that long, for his health is quite good, he rarely gets sick, only suffers from colds. This recognition received a response. Irwin Stone told Pauling that if he wanted to avoid colds and live longer, he should take a few grams of vitamin C every day.

Being an inquisitive man, Pauling delved into the problem in order to substantiate such a statement and was firmly convinced that this was not chatter. He decided that the most convincing proof of the correctness of the idea would be experiments performed on himself. When he published his own thoughts on the subject in a book called "Vitamin C and the Common Cold" ("Vitamin C and the common cold"), suggesting healthy doses ranging from 4-5 to 12-15 g of vitamin C daily and vouching that this was how the common cold could be prevented and cured, his views were swept aside by most traditional medical establishments. Here is a man whose sharp, inquisitive mind revolutionized chemistry, whose voice sounded alone, announcing the danger of atomic tests in the atmosphere; now he was sharing with the world his vision of how something very simple, like vitamin C, could be a weapon against viral and other diseases. This is undoubtedly a worthy task, at least worthy of scientific research. And in the end it turned out, as has happened in history, that a modest vitamin can indeed be a miracle cure against a serious illness, just as it was not the first time that Linus Pauling was right and the rest were wrong. But traditional medical institutions ignored his hypothesis without any serious verification. And not the first magnitude luminaries of the scientific world grinned: "Poor old Linus went crazy with this vitamin C." But, as happened before, time proved him right.

Dr. Pauling has been actively involved in research into the potential benefits of ascorbic acid in heart disease, cancer, and viral diseases at the Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, California. The amount of information confirming the protective, preventive and therapeutic effects of vitamin C is increasing every day. I must say that vitamins cannot save you from an unhealthy lifestyle in general. Vitamins are like seat belts. When you fasten your seat belts, this is not a guarantee of a safe ride, it simply protects you in the event of an accident. The use of vitamins works the same way: it will not help you with poor nutrition or other neglect of your health, but it gives an additional chance for protection. This is confirmed by the long and active life of Dr. Pauling, who took 18 g of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and 800 IU of tocopherol (vitamin E) per day since the seventh decade for almost thirty years! He lived to be 93 years old, and his life itself is a great example of the positive effects of vitamins.