Medicine: Key to Growth

Re-creating a hormone factor

The gradual growth that a child experiences between birth and maturity is regulated by a powerful hormone produced in the body's "master gland," or pituitary. If too much of the hormone is created, the child may become a giant; too little may cause a rare form of dwarfism. The production of the growth hormone is determined by another hormone, known as growth hormone-releasing factor (GRF). Scientists have known for decades that GRF is produced by the hypothalamus, located in the forebrain. But the problem of isolating GRF and then artificially reproducing it remained unsolved until the breakthrough, reported in Science last week, by researchers at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

GRF eluded scientists for so long because the body normally produces it in minute quantities. The Salk team, headed by 1977 Nobel Laureate Roger Guillemin, got its sample from a patient with a rare cancer that causes overproduction of GRF. Once isolated, the substance, which is structurally simple, was easily synthesized. Scientists now start the process of determining how to use GRF to solve certain growth problems in humans, like pituitary dwarfism. GRF may also be used to treat some kinds of diabetes and to speed the healing of wounds and burns.