Pauling Brings Respectability to Vitamin

At the occasion of Linus Pauling’s 90th birthday, Shari Roan wrote an article about him that contains many fine parts. Yet the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine (LPI) is presented as an institution that still performs “some research that many scientists regard dubiously,” although it “recently landed some respectable projects.”

Lightly dismissive formulations such as the above may originate in the wake of the controversy that has surrounded Dr. Pauling’s stand on Vitamin C (ascorbate).

Insofar as the portion of research at LPI that is focused on medical nutritional biochemistry is concerned--and more specifically on ascorbate--let it be said that Vitamin C research has recently been the object (September, 1990) of a symposium organized and sponsored at the National Institutes of Health by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases on the subject of Vitamin C’s biological actions and cancer.

This symposium brought together speakers from institutions all over the country, including--besides the Linus Pauling Institute--Harvard Medical School, John Hopkins Medical School, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, four Texas universities, and a number of others.

The often scorned ascorbate molecule emerged at this colloquium as what it is, a versatile small molecule that intervenes in an array of biochemical and biological systems--which explains why, as Linus Pauling has long recognized, ascorbate rightly may be applicable to a diversity of pathologies.

It should be added that major areas of the Linus Pauling Institute’s activities are devoted to basic medical and biological science, including the molecular biology of viral and nonviral carcinogenesis, the molecular mechanisms of aging, DNA repair and replication, the organization of the human genome and molecular evolution, and studies in areas of medical statistics and of genetics.

EMILE ZUCKERKANDL

President and Director

Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine

Palo Alto, Calif.