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Biomedical subjects

J A Banks

Publications and source records attributed to J A Banks.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1987

Working safely with ethylene oxide.

During the last few years there has been a great deal of concern about the health and safety hazards of working with Ethylene Oxide (E.O.), particularly in gas sterilisation processing. This concern is well founded. Toxicity studies in primarily animal research indicate that E.O. is a suspected cancer causing agent and possible reproductive hazard. As a result of these findings, industry, health care facilities and government have been working to reduce worker exposure to extremely low levels and thereby protect the employees health. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and recommend action plans that you can follow for employee health and protection and for regulatory compliance.

Accident Prevention↗
PubMed1985

Chloroplast DNA diversity is low in a wild plant, Lupinus texensis.

Chloroplast DNA diversity was measured in an annual flowering plant, Lupinus texensis. Individual plants were collected from 21 local populations throughout the range of the species in Texas. Chloroplast DNA was isolated separately from each plant and digested with seven restriction enzymes. The most common form of the 150-kilobase-pair genome was cut at 134 sites, so that about 0.5% of the base pairs in the genome were sampled. Of the 100 plants examined, 88 had identical restriction fragment patterns. Three variant forms were found in different local populations. Two, represented in single plants, differed from wild type in the presence or absence of single restriction sites. The third variant was fixed in one of the local populations; it had lost a restriction site and also had a deletion of approximately equal to 100 base pairs. The data suggest that chloroplast DNA in this plant is much less polymorphic than mitochondrial DNA from animals and is probably less polymorphic than nuclear genes in the same plant or in animals.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMed1980

Hypothalamic sites which control the surges of prolactin secretion induced by cervical stimulation.

Artificial stimulation of the uterine cervix (CS) of the rat institutes two daily surges of PRL. These surges in turn activate and maintain luteal progesterone secretion for a 13-day interval known as pseudopregnancy. Electrolytic lesions of the medial preoptic area (MPOA) or electrical stimulation of the dorsomedial-ventromedial areas (DMN-VMN) of the hypothalamus also induce pseudopregnancies. This study was designed to determine if these pseudopregnancies are also characterized by the biphasic pattern of PRL secretion. Bilateral electrolytic lesions were placed in the MPOA on the morning of either estrus or the 14th day after ovariectomy. Both experimental models had nocturnal (0500 h) but no diurnal (1900 h) surges of PRL on the second day after placement of the lesion. Sham-lesioned rats had neither surge. When both surges were initiated by CS on proestrus, placement of the lesion on estrus blocked the diurnal but not the nocturnal surge of PRL. These data suggest that the MPOA possesses neurons which are inhibitory to nocturnal surges and stimulatory to diurnal surges of PRL and that CS removes the inhibition over the former and stimulates the latter. Electrical stimulation of the DMN-VMN initiates both surges of PRL in intact or ovariectomized rats. Thus, CS may also act either directly or indirectly w;thin the DMN-VMN to induce both surges of PRL.

Animals↗