Carsten Reinhardt

Elevated frequencies of natural killer T lymphocytes in myasthenia gravis

Article abstract T lymphocytes are considered to exert a regulatory function in the development of antiacetylcholine receptor antibodies, but no clear T-cell alterations in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) have yet been found. The authors report a significant increase of recently identified natural killer T lymphocytes expressing T-cell receptor Vα24. A possible role in disease initiation or maintenance is suggested by the observed strong synthesis of interferon-γ as well as of interleukin 4.

Normalization of elevated CD4−/CD8− (double-negative) T cells after thymectomy parallels clinical remission in myasthenia gravis associated with thymic hyperplasia but not thymoma

T‐cell–dependent B‐cell help is likely to be of major importance in the pathogenesis of myasthenia gravis, but mechanisms provoking a pathological anti–acetylcholine receptor (AChR) response are poorly understood. We report on the dysregulation of recently identified CD4−/CD8− (double‐negative) T cells (DN T cells), which have been shown to participate in immunoregulation and antibody augmentation. Compared with healthy controls, significantly increased frequencies of DN T cells were found in the blood of myasthenia gravis patients with lymphofollicular hyperplasia. After thymectomy, however, normalization in the number of these cells was seen in parallel with clinical improvement and reduction in anti‐AChR antibody titers. The effect of thymectomy was observed irrespective of adjuvant treatment and held true for up to 4 years of follow‐up. In marked contrast, frequencies similar to control values were found in myasthenia gravis patients with thymoma, with thymectomy having no further reducing effect. These data indicate that CD4−/CD8− T cells not only participate in the pathogenesis of myasthenia gravis but also correlate with disease activity and histological findings. Ann Neurol 2000;48:603–608

A lead user of instruments in science: John D. Roberts and the adaptation of nuclear magnetic resonance to organic chemistry, 1955-1975.

During the 1960s organic chemistry underwent a spectacular transformation as a result of the introduction of high‐tech instruments. In this process, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) became an important analytical technique in organic chemistry. The theme of this essay is the relationship of Varian Associates of Palo Alto, California, the major manufacturer of NMR spectrometers up to the 1970s, with one early and crucial user, the organic chemist John D. Roberts, who was based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Roberts’s research and teaching contributed to the fast and smooth acceptance of NMR in organic chemistry. He embraced the role of mediator between the instrument manufacturer, which had expertise mainly in physics and electrical engineering, and the customers, who were mostly organic chemists. This essay focuses on the tactics used by Roberts and James N. Shoolery at Varian Associates to implement novel types of instrumentation and on the modes of cooperation between instrument manufacturer and academic scientist.

Aspects of Paper Tools in the Industrial-Academic Context: Constitutions and Structures of Aniline Dyes, 1860–1880

The synthetic, or “aniline,” dye industry, based on coal-tar hydrocarbons such as benzene, was established in England and France following William Henry Perkin’s 1856 invention of his mauve process. Almost from the moment of its inception the industry was declared to be a union of science and industry. However, though the union was strong, and was to remain so, it was invariably understood to imply a partnership in which industry relied on advances in academic research. Thus the highly relevant studies of August Wilhelm Hofmann on aromatic amino compounds and the advancement of Friedrich August Kekule’s benzene ring were projected as the outcomes of a well-developed tradition of academic enquiry in chemistry. This certainly enhanced the rapid expansion of the discipline, but it also masked the fact that industry played a considerable role in not only influencing the direction of academic research but also in establishing the efficacy of constitutional and structural formulae when used as “paper tools.” From the start, industrial interests stimulated studies into the classifications of, and interrelationships between, novel products. They also demonstrated convincingly the relevance of the benzene ring formula.

An Instrument of Corporate Strategy

At the end of the nineteenth century two modern industries, those connected with dyestuffs and the electrical equipment, developed strategies and structures for the ongoing creation of novel products and technologies. One of the most successful strategies connected with this was the establishment of organisational units within the companies, in particular the industrial research laboratories.1

Sites of Chemistry in the Twentieth Century.

This special issue of Ambix embraces the theme of sites of late nineteenthand twentieth-century chemistry and chemical engineering. The issue is part of a series on sites of chemistry, 1600–2000, and the contributions on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have appeared in previous volumes of this journal (the May 2013 and May 2014 issues, respectively). The three articles published here have their origins in a conference organised by John Perkins and Antonio García-Belmar, which took place in August 2013 in Uppsala, Sweden. In accordance with Perkins’s earlier views on the subject, the articles chosen for this issue attempt to broaden the scope of approaches on the role of place and space in science. A focus on sites, he wrote, highlights the situating of chemistry in “social and cultural networks,” while at the same time allowing an “integration of the material culture of chemistry into its wider history,” and enabling the historian to emphasise the crucial connections of chemistry with industry and agriculture. As we will see, most, if not all, of these topics play important roles in the articles in this issue, making clear the interconnectedness of sites of chemistry over the centuries since 1600. In his wide-ranging historiographical introduction to the issue on nineteenth-century sites of chemistry, García-Belmar emphasised the crucial role of sites of chemistry outside the traditional place of this science, the laboratory. Furthermore, García-Belmar pointed towards the symbolic functions of buildings, their role in the construction of trust, and the importance of physical sites for the transaction and migration of knowledge. While these historiographical trends and analytical concepts certainly apply to sites of twentieth-century chemistry in general, and to the sites treated in this issue in particular, the twentieth century brings additional challenges and opportunities for the historian. The period covered by the three contributions in this issue, the time from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s, has been treated by sociologists and historians of science as a period heavily imprinted by the impact of science on

Expertise in Methods, Methods of Expertise

Scientific expertise is a key issue in the concept of the knowledge society. While the focus of much of the current research is on the user- or the demand-side of scientific expertise, the focus of this paper is on its formation. To achieve this, it aims at establishing a connection of the history of scientific methods with the history of scientific expertise. In my view, competence in methods is the basis for the building of capabilities that are needed to help in the solution of others’ problems. Furthermore, because competence in methods is not an easily accessible – but often even an exclusive – qualification, it contributes to the demarcation of expert and layperson. Though historical in perspective and methodology, this paper involves epistemological and sociological issues as well. The first part deals with the topic of methods in the history of science, illustrating it with the example of the impact of physical methods on chemistry in the second half of the twentieth century. The second part tackles the notion of scientific expertise, exemplified with a case study on analytical chemistry in mid-nineteenth century.

Ambitious and Glory Hunting ... Impractical and Fantastic

What made Heinrich Caro such a successful and prolific inventor? This is the principal question that we tried to answer as we followed his career, especially during the 1870s and early 1880s. Because of Caro’s artistic inclinations, we might with considerable justification describe this as his second most fertile period, when, as development chemist and then research director at BASF, he became the most important inventor of synthetic dyestuffs in the 19th century. Despite the surviving personal journals, diaries, and correspondence, and even self-congratulatory accounts, this is, however, one part of Caro’s life for which source material is thin, at least from his own perspective. Accordingly, other approaches to verisimilitude must be sought out. There is, fortunately, an important insight into Caro’s working style at that time. This derives from a retrospective and somewhat one-sided account written by his main professional rival at BASF, Carl Andreas Glaser, who joined the firm in 1869.

The Interaction of Guest Molecules with Co‐MOF‐74: A Vis/NIR and Raman Approach

Co-MOF-74 rod like crystals with a length of several hundred micrometers are synthesized by a solvothermal procedure and their interaction with different gases is evaluated for selective gas sensing. We show strongly anisotropic absorption behavior of the Co-MOF-74 crystals when illuminated with polarized light. The interactions of guests (CO2 , propane, propene, Ar, MeOH, H2 O) with Co-MOF-74, is studied by various spectroscopic techniques. Vis/NIR shows peak shifts of Co-MOF-74 depending on the interaction with the guest. In the visible and the NIR the maximum absorbance is shifted selectively corresponding to the intensity of the CoII -guest interaction. Even propene and propane could be distinguished at room temperature by their different interactions with Co-MOF-74. Raman spectroscopy was used to detect a modified vibrational behavior of Co-MOF-74 upon gas adsorption. We show that the adsorption of H2 O leads to a characteristic shift of the peak maxima in the Raman spectra.

Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissensgeschichte

Die Wissenschaftsgeschichte ist eine akademische Disziplin, deren eigene Geschichte untrennbar mit der Geschichte der europaischen Moderne verbunden ist. Zwar war es auch in vormodernen Schriftkulturen, sowohl in der griechisch-lateinischen Antike als auch in anderen Hochkulturen, durchaus ublich, zuvor Behauptetes enzyklopadisch zu sammeln und ruckblickend zu bewerten (Cherniak 1994; Zhmud 2008).