Page 192 - The Miracle of Hormones

THE MIRACLE OF HORMONES

disregarded in scientific circles.
Generally, the first reaction to
this discovery was disbelief.
But, within a short time, the
results of research have awaken-
ed great interest in the scientific
community; as evidence of this,
the December 1992 issue of the
well known scientific periodical
Science called nitric oxide the
Nitric oxide is a gas that causes air pol-
74
lution and acid rain; it also destroys the "molecule of the year." With in-
ozone layer and the ecological balance. creased work in this field of sci-
entific research, nitric oxide has
gained great recognition; it has become known as the "magic gas," the
"wonderful molecule" and the "secret messenger."
Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad, who demonstrat-
ed the role of nitric oxide in the process of cellular communication, re-
ceived the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine. In the Nobel Foundation press
release, it was noted that the prize was awarded to these professors for
discoveries made relative to the NO messenger molecule, and it was
pointed out that this discovery had elicited an avalanche of research ac-
tivities in many different laboratories around the world. Special re-
75
search in the field of cellular communication has brought several other
awards to the same researchers from the Nobel foundation.
In fact, in the last ten years, there has been an explosion in the
amount of research done on NO; foundations have been established in
the name of Nitric Oxide; periodicals have been published; according to
the Nitric Oxide Society records, there are more than 32,000 scientific pa-
pers dealing with this remarkable molecule. 76
Dr. Salvador Monsada, known for his work on nitric oxide, said that
NO has changed the generally accepted thinking about cell-to-cell inter-
action, and that it has turned upside down some ideas about this mat-
ter. Dr. John Cooke, of Stanford University, has characterized this
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