Human growth hormone is a natural hormone produced inside the human body and helps in growth and development. But man-made HGH is becoming more famous. But how was man-made HGH discovered? Keep reading if you want to find out.
The discovery of human growth hormone (HGH) began in the 1920s with the study of pituitary dwarfism. This is a condition characterized by stunted growth and caused by a deficiency of HGH.
As outlined in the research reported by The National Institute of Health, during the early 1920s, a group of medical researchers and endocrinologists initiated the examination and scrutiny of individuals affected by pituitary dwarfism. During their observations, these experts detected growth-related challenges in these individuals, which seemed to be closely associated with issues originating from the malfunction of the pituitary gland.
In the 1930s, Maurice Raben, an American physician, demonstrated that extracts from the pituitary gland could promote growth in animals.
Later, an endocrinologist led a team of researchers to a significant HGH breakthrough. They isolated HGH in 1944 by a team of researchers led by Choh Hao Li, a Chinese-born American biochemist.
Choh Hao Li made the groundbreaking discovery of Man-made Human Growth Hormone in 1966 while working at the University of California, San Francisco.
It was with this discovery that thousands of abnormally short children would get a chance to lead a normal life. Li spent a good amount of his life in this research and was able to discover eight of the nine hormones that are produced in the pituitary gland.
It is this pea-sized organ located deep in the brain that produces Human Growth Hormone and also regulates fertility, metabolism, and body growth. All of these achievements were great but Li is most famous for the discovery of the Human Growth Hormone which he made in 1955.
As the name suggests, it is the Human Growth Hormone that helps children grow normally. However, Li did not stop at this discovery, instead, he found a way to isolate the Human Growth Hormone and harvest it so that it can be given to children suffering from dwarfism.
This discovery changed the outlook of the world, however, Li’s way of collecting Human Growth Hormones could not go on for long. Extracting HGH from human pituitary glands was a challenging process, as the supply was limited, and the hormone was costly to produce.
At the peak of the research, more than 82,500 pituitary glands were extracted to treat about 3,000 children suffering from dwarfism. The program, however, failed due to fewer autopsies, through which the pituitary glands were extracted.
But luckily, other companies were able to find other more efficient ways to produce Human Growth Hormone.
In 1971, he isolated the HGH structure and synthesized it into minute quantities. This paved way for the supply of genetically engineered bacteria.
It also formed the basis for commercialization of the HGH production, while also providing the building block for the gene coding.
The initial process was fraught with using contamination samples. Scores of patients who previously used HGH stained by the Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease (CJD) passed on.
This risk occasioned the need to develop safe HGH processes. As such, buoyed by the increased inflow of funding to research and development of the safer artificially made HGH, new prospects emerged.
Three approaches were fronted. The Inclusion Body Technology (IBT), Protein Secretion (PS), and Mouse Cell Technology (MCT).
IBT used e coli bacteria to mass produce recombinant HGH (rHGH). But it caused allergies in some individuals.
As revealed in research findings from Genetics Unzipped, Inclusion Body Technology (IBT) is a biotechnological approach employed for the production of recombinant Human Growth Hormone (rHGH) utilizing Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. Despite its success in large-scale rHGH production, this method has sparked apprehension due to the potential of inducing allergies in certain individuals.
The PS is a sophisticated method and enables mass production of rHGH. It mimicked the characteristics of natural HGH secreted by your body.
MCT is the best approach, though its initial cost is higher than the first two. The production here is caused by inserting rHGH DNA into rat cells. This technology produced the chemically perfect rHGH.
In 1956, the first synthetic form of HGH was produced by American biochemist James B. Sumner using a technique called solid-phase peptide synthesis. However, the first synthesized form of HGH was not identical to the natural hormone and had limited effectiveness.
As documented in a report by Britannica, a momentous achievement in the domains of endocrinology and biotechnology occurred in 1956 when American biochemist James B. Sumner successfully created the inaugural synthetic version of Human Growth Hormone (HGH). This groundbreaking accomplishment was made possible through the application of a method called solid-phase peptide synthesis.
In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists made progress in improving the synthesis of HGH. The process, though, was still expensive and produced only small quantities of the hormone.
In the 1980s, a breakthrough was made when scientists discovered how to produce a form of HGH that was identical to the natural hormone using recombinant DNA technology.
In 1981, the biotechnology company Genentech announced that they had successfully cloned the gene that codes for HGH. This breakthrough paved the way for the development of recombinant HGH, which was produced by several companies, including Genentech, Eli Lilly and Company, and Novo Nordisk.
These were some of the main things that you need to know about the discovery of Human Growth Hormone. Although Human Growth Hormone is produced by the pituitary gland naturally, many people in the world suffer from a condition where they don’t have enough Human Growth Hormone to ensure proper growth.
Li’s discovery helped solve this problem because now scientists can produce synthetic Human Growth Hormone that can be given to these children. This is perhaps one of the greatest discoveries of the last century and has helped many people over the years.
SIMILAR QUESTION
How Man-made Hgh Was Discovered?
Man-made human growth hormone (HGH) was discovered in the early 1950s. Prior to this, HGH was naturally produced in the human body to stimulate growth and development. It was not until the 1950s that scientists were able to create a synthetic version of the hormone.
The discovery of man-made HGH began with the work of two scientists, Maurice Raben and Alfred E. Gilman. In 1950, the two men isolated and purified a human pituitary extract containing the growth hormone. They proposed that this hormone could be used to treat conditions such as dwarfism and hypopituitarism.
In the following year, they published their findings in the journal Nature, outlining the structure of the hormone and its role in the human body. The next step was to find a way to produce it in a laboratory setting. This was achieved by the end of the 1950s.
In 1958, a team at the University of Toronto developed a method to synthesize human growth hormone from recombinant DNA technology. This method allowed scientists to produce large amounts of the hormone in a laboratory.
The discovery of man-made HGH has had a huge impact on medical care. The hormone is now used to treat conditions such as growth hormone deficiency, Turner syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and chronic kidney disease. In addition, it is used to aid in the recovery of burn victims and to promote healing in patients undergoing surgery.
Man-made HGH has also been used in sports to enhance athletic performance. This use is controversial and banned by many sports organizations.
The discovery of man-made HGH has revolutionized the way we treat medical conditions and how athletes perform. Without the work of Maurice Raben and Alfred E. Gilman, this incredible medical breakthrough would not have been possible.
