Biological and Medical Research Group (H-4 of the Health Division -- Annual Report, July 1965 Through June 1966

The increased emphasis over the past 5 years on attempts to contribute to the understanding of radiation effects at the cellular- and molecular-levels has been primarily responsible for expansion of the biological and medical research program at Los Alamos. These investigations have largely taken the direction of studying some of the detailed processes of information transfer in in vitro biological systems and the sequential biochemistry of phased mammalian cells grown in culture medium. The eventual objective of these investigations is to determine the influence of radiation, radioactive materials, and drugs of known biological effect on the previously established cellular and molecular processes. The purpose of studying drug effects is to observe whether there is parallelism between radiation effects and the known action of the drug. As an example, is there similarity between cycloheximide inhibition of synthesis of essential protein for cell division and inhibition of cell division by irradiation?