Historical review of early researches on mitogenetic radiation: from discovery to cancer diagnostics

Abstract

The review is devoted to the experimental studies of mitogenetic radiation (weak UV-chemiluminescence of biological objects) conducted between 1923 and 1948 years. In this period UV-radiation of various biological objects (so called inductors) and its influence on mitotic rate of other biological objects (detectors) were investigated very actively. Very promising results were obtained including the finding of the peptide tumor marker in blood, which was called cancer quencher due to its ability to quench UV-chemiluminescence of blood. Later these researches were interrupted and almost abandoned. The relevance of the scientific problems addressed in these works to this day is stated, the key experiments and the most valuable results obtained between 1923 and 1948 are described in details and subsequent researches are briefly traced up to the present. The prospects of future development are discussed.