"Assay of Plasma Insulin in Human Subjects by Immunological Methods" [Contained in:] Nature, Vol 184, No 4699, pp 1648-49

Yalow, Rosalyn S. ; Berson, Solomon A.

Published by [Macmillan & Co. LTD], [London], 1959

About this Item

First Edition. [2], V-VI, 1595-1670 pp. 10 3/8 x 7 3/8 inches. Modern black cloth, printed paper spine label. Bookplate of Andras Gedeon on front pastedown. Cloth. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977 was divided, one half jointly to Roger Guillemin and Andrew V. Schally "for their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain" and the other half to Rosalyn Yalow "for the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones.Rosalyn Yalow was a nuclear physicist. She developed radioimmunoassay (RIA) together with doctor Solomon Berson. RIA is used to measure small concentrations of substances in the body, such as hormones in the blood. Yalow and Berson tracked insulin by injecting radioactive iodine into patients' blood. Because the method is so precise, they were able to prove that type 2 diabetes is caused by the body's inefficient use of insulin. Previously it was thought that the disease was caused by a lack of insulin." (Nobel Prize Org) The most often referenced paper by Yalow and Berson is their 1960 paper (see below) published in JCI "where for the first time they described the pattern and quantity of insulin released in response to ingestion of sugar. The paper included data for normal subjects Type II diabetics, and patients with a variety of other disorders.This long paper contains many important discoveries." (Straus, p 151) "It is not surprising that the 1960 article "Immunoassay of endogenous plasma insulin in man" by Yalow and Berson holds a record as one of the most cited articles ever published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.While a skeptic might note that most of the frequently cited articles in the literature are focused on methodology, in this case, while the paper superficially appears to be only a description of a method to assay insulin, it actually marks a revolution in biology and medicine.Immunoassays provided a method by which minute quantities of virtually any biologically interesting moldecules present in blood or other fluids could be measure with sensitivity and specificity, even in the presence of hundreds of thousands of other substances.they successfully applied the technique of immunoassay to the analysis of many other hormones and substances, leading to breakthrough insights into multiple disease states." (Kahn and Roth, p 1051) We believe [the present paper] is a fundamental building block because it was a pre-cursor to the 1960 work, showing for the first time that insulin could be measured in human (rather than animal) blood. "It took Yalow and Berson several years of work, including detailed studies and mathematical models of the quantitative aspects of the reaction between insulin and antibody, and evaluation of the species specificity of available antisera that they had raised in guinea pigs and rabbits, before theoretical concepts of the RIA method could be translated into measurements of circulating insulin. They honed the technique with measurements of beef and other animal insulinis using antibody in the plasma of their human subjects. Finally, in their 1959 paper that appeared in Nature [as here] they were measuring the insulin in human blood." (Straus, p151) It is interesting to note that the establishment found their work to be implausible: "Immunologists of the mid 1950s did not believe that insulin was immunogenic - hence the JCI rejection." of a 1955 a paper Yalow and Berson submitted to JCI that laid the groundwork for the insulin immunoassay was rejected for publication. "[Yalow] was the second woman (after Gerty Cori), and the first American-born woman, to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. "("Wikipedia") "First radioimmunoassay of a hormone, a test capable of estimating nonogram or even picogram quantities. For this technique Yalow shared the 1977 Nobel Prize with R. Guillemin and A. Schally." (GM 2578.28 refering to the 1960 paper) PROVENANCE: Author Andras Gedeon's copy with his bookplate on the front pastedown.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: "Assay of Plasma Insulin in Human Subjects by Immunological Methods" [Contained in:] Nature, Vol 184, No 4699, pp 1648-49
• Publisher: [Macmillan & Co. LTD], [London]
• Publication Date: 1959
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Medicine
  • Women in Science
  • Nobel Prize Laureates, Physiology or Medicine