Oliver Smithies:
Now on to physical book XIV, Roman 14, which goes from September 1957 through November, so it’s not a very long period of time, but it’s got quite a lot of data in it, probably just repeating samples and so on. It starts, however, with a continuation of different methods of applying the sample, two times three MM photo papers with starch grains, etc., and polyethylene with starch grains, but nothing very remarkable, and continuing on 12th and 13th, and comments were poor, and nothing very remarkable. [00:01:00]
Some attempt to look at dog pancreas extracts, September 12th, but nothing very remarkable. Trying to improve the separations with insulin, September 14th, but with a comment, “Not sufficient improvement to be worth continuing with.” Re-photographing the standard gels, trying to improve the photography, and necessary same for textbook inclusion, [00:02:00] [microfile?] is too contrasty. KB17 is nothing. Therefore, use KB14 with the developer, which is a contrasted developer, DA, and test roll of 70 exposures. It says — it looks like 70. I can’t believe it. It must be seven exposures. Excellent range. Half a second. AF8 over 11 is probably the best, showing the distances between the lights and where the sample was. [00:03:00] (pause)
New aborigines samples obtained, September 30th, and with the notation of what beta globin they had. On Monday, [00:04:00] Tuesday, October 1st, a whole bunch of two-dimensional setup and rather nice summary of them, photographic summary of them on the following pages, showing clearly, for example, that sample 37 has a single beta, and sample 38 has double beta. I haven’t yet, I think, seen the homozygotes, what turned out to be the homozygote for beta globin; at least, I don’t comment on it. Photographs of October, 17 to 38 and 36, [00:05:00] 38, 36, going back. Thirty-eight and 36… Yeah, they have the extra beta globin, and so has 39, so there are comments, notation a little bit. Unfortunately, it should really be double beta, just beta [D?].
More October 2nd, with photographs coming up. Again, a very nice set of photographs taken between October 1st and 2nd of the different samples. [00:06:00] Slightly smeary results, but, nonetheless, one can type them. Very many more, October 3rd, Tuesday, of the doubles and singles, all recorded as we did them. So this is just continuing to do large numbers of two-dimensional — many two-dimensional gels to type the transferrins. [00:07:00]
And more, Saturday October 5th, set up results on the following page, photographed again, continuously photographing the separation of sample 71 into two beta globin [bands?] is really quite nice. I should be beginning to find a homozygous for the double band. I imagine that eventually this will turn up. October 8th, another [00:08:00] four or five samples. Aha, and then on October the 8th, just a comment on one sample there: the pregnancy band, 2B with a pregnancy band. I don’t know whether we talked about this earlier. I think we probably have, but I know I have referred to it. October 8th, sample 78, from [Gil Street?] had the pregnancy band. (pause) [00:09:00]
(sneezes) I can’t sneeze, still, [recorded?]. (laughter) Problems of old age. More [Torres?] Islanders. They look all to be — these particular set are all single beta, but evidently not all of them. There is one that is recorded as two, maybe up on a subsequent set of images. Yeah. Yeah, sample seven. Yes, [00:10:00] October 9th setup, and then images on the following pages, and with a Torres Islander, again, with two betas. So this is just continuing to accumulate data (inaudible). Pages and pages of them. Trying to improve the sample insertion continuously, struggling with that, and Tuesday, October 8th, a typical comment: not sufficient improvement to warrant the complication. I still haven’t learned that there is a simpler solution, [00:11:00] just to run a vertical gel, but it will come.
This book is primarily many, many samples being run for looking at the beta globins. (pause) Wednesday, October 16th, I evidently [00:12:00] wanted to run a comparison of a whole bunch of them, because all of them are double beta. Try to test the non-entry of bacteriophage into the gels. With a comment October 17, the phage does not enter the gels. Then design of a virus remover and concentrator, aim to have a continuous system where you could put virus and protein solution in one side of the gel, and have protein solution come out [00:13:00] of the other side, and the virus left on the gel’s surface. (pause)
Trying to run some tube gel — [00:14:00] tubes of some sort for this business of separating virus, etc. Thursday, October 24, an attempt to run sample — it looks as if I’m slowly beginning to realize that vertical gel might be of interest. The aim was to obtain virus concentration in this way. And/or albumin separation from [group?] plasma, a rather uninformative diagram. [00:15:00] Usual confirmatory gels on October 29. And here, a bunch of samples from — just labeled with numbers. All of them had single beta globins. [00:16:00] (pause)
Pages and pages of two-dimensional gel. A better notation here of the double band beta BC, beta BC. [00:17:00] Forty-eight samples were received from Australia Sunday, Monday November 4th, and one-dimensional gels are photographed. Then the two-dimensional gel on the following two pages. More two-dimension experiments on Monday, Tuesday November 5th, and so on. As I said, pages and pages of two-dimensional gels. [00:18:00] Photographs of one-dimension, two-dimensional gels, continuing, pages and pages of this, just increasing the number of samples that we had studied. Example, November 5th — Friday, November 8th, rather — all beta C, beta C, 2B, 2B, 2A, 2B, 2A, 2A, 2A, 2B. [00:19:00] And then nothing very remarkable, just continuing to run many samples. To check the — November 11th, trying to see if I can see them on one-dimensional gels, to check whether I could get beta C, beta D resolution by one-dimensional gels, [00:20:00] with the comment it’s not reliable when hemoglobin is there. Still trying some sort of vertical system, and not yet tested with plasma or serum, but this was some attempts at separating things vertically. Now, being able to photograph the gels altogether, or run a large gel at one time, it’s not very clear. [00:21:00] [Didn’t?] start… Plus or minuses, hemoglobin November 12th, evidently still worrying about that sort of difference, to see whether it made much difference to the separation. [00:22:00]
Some (inaudible) trying to do eggs and yolks on Saturday, November 16th, looking at eggs and yolks of the different samples. These were… I think these virus experiments were probably related to my wife, Lois Kitze, because she was doing virus things, and I don’t remember [00:23:00] the exact date when she joined me in Toronto, but it’s probable the experiments were related to her virus work. Some of the virus experiments talked about at various stages in these books are in conjunction with her. This book ends, then, on November 16th, Saturday, 1957.