The Dynamic State of Body Constituents

In 1933, Schoenheimer, who was medically qualified and had been working with Aschoff in the Pathology Institute in Freiburg, moved to Columbia University, New York, and was joined the next year by David Rittenberg. Rittenberg had just spent some time in Urey s laboratory in the Rockefeller Institute learning techniques for handling deuterium. Their first experiments concerned the metabolism of deuterated fatty acids in rats and the demonstration (see below) that 2H from heavy water was incorporated by the animals into fatty acids and cholesterol. 

If 15N ammonium citrate was administered, and glutamate, aspartate, and glycine isolated from liver and intestinal wall protein, all showed 15N uptake. From the results of labeling studies, Schoenheimer finished his Edward K.Dunham lectures in Harvard in 1941 with the phrase— the structural materials [of the body] are in a steady state of flux. The classical picture must thus be replaced by one which takes account of the dynamic state of body structure —an idea which has become an integral part of biochemistry since that time, and which was almost totally dependent on the introduction of isotopes for its discovery. 

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Schoenheimer, R. (1942). The Dynamic State of Body Constituents. (Republished 1964). Hafner Publishing, New York. 

Schoenheimer, R. The Dynamic State of Body Constituents. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1949. [This small book is based on lectures given at Harvard in 1941, just before Schoenheinier s death in September of that year. Although this book is out of date, it still makes very interesting reading.] ... 

Schoenheimer, R. The Dynamic State of Body Constituents Harvard... 

In 1913, George Hevesy introduced the use of radioactive indicators when he used radioactive lead to track the movement of lead from the soil into plants and then back to the soil. He later extended these studies to living animals. In 1935, he showed how elements and molecules are taken up and released continually by living cells, a process called the dynamic state of body constituents. 

The term atomic medicine was used for decades after the end of World War II to describe the new field of medicine based on the use of radioactive tracers to examine the dynamic state of body constituents. 

Stetten, D., Jr., and Schoenheimer, R., J. Biol. Chem. 133, 329 (1940). Schoenheimer, R., The Dynamic State of Body Constituents. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1942. 

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