Science / Medicine : Growth Treatment Tested

A new approach to treating children with growth disorders caused by insufficient production of human growth hormone is being successfully tested clinically, according to chemist Arthur Felix of Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. in Nutley, N.J. Such children are now treated with hormone produced in bacteria through genetic engineering techniques, but the relatively expensive protein must be used in fairly large amounts and must be injected three times a week.

Hoffmann-La Roche has been working with a different protein, called growth hormone releasing factor, that was discovered in 1982 by researchers at the Salk Institute in La Jolla.

The releasing factor, about a quarter the size of the growth hormone, is produced in the hypothalamus gland and stimulates production of several forms of growth hormone by the pituitary gland. It can be used in much smaller quantities than the hormone and, because it is a much smaller protein, can be administered through a skin patch rather than by injection. He predicted that the hormone could be used on 10,000 children in the United States.

Felix and his colleagues have developed a derivative of the releasing factor that is smaller still and that appears especially effective in animals. Research in cows and pigs has shown that it increases milk production and the efficiency with which feed is converted into muscle, while making the animals leaner.