1
State and Local
Monday, February 1, 1988AThe Battalion/Page 3
Grant will help A&M researcher study
condition linked to circulation of fluids
By Tracey Streater
Reporter
Ha swollen ankle, an enlarged
stomach due to malnutrition and a
runny nose can all be the result of
the same problem, the head of the
department of medical physiology at
Texas A&M says.
â–  Dr. Harris Granger, also director
of the University’s Microcirculation
iRpsearch Institute, says all these
symptoms can be attributed to a con-
aitton called edema.
z
Granger, a recent recipient of the
National Institutes of Health
MERIT (Method to Extend Re-
Hirch In Time) Award for his re-
^Birch of edema, has been studying
it for 20 years. He received a rene-
jwable five-year, $1.5 million grant
for the study of the pathophysiology
of edema in 1978 from the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
| Edema is an excess of fluid flow
ing from circulation in the small
blood vessels, called capillaries, into
the tissue space between cells, called
the matrix. From the matrix, the
fluid moves into tubes called lym
phatics, where it is transported to
larger veins, usually in the neck, and
then emptied back into the body’s
I circulatory system.
■ “Because there is pressure in (the
capillaries), and there are holes in
He capillary walls, then there is
g( ing to be a slow movement of fluid
Horn inside this capillary to the out
side,” Granger says. “Just as water
Capillary
Red Blood Cells
Proteins
Intercellular 1
^ Matrix^?
^1 Lymph
Lymphatic
Graphic by Susan C. Akin
flows out of perforated hoses, there
is a very small jet of fluid moving out
of the circulation (of the blood
through the capillaries).”
“Lymphatics are sort of like the
sewer systems of the tissues,” Gran
ger says. “They remove fluid and
other materials that have leaked out
of the blood vessels and have not
been consumed by the cells.”
Under normal conditions, the rate
of fluid filtering through the capilla
ries equals the rate of fluid, or
lymph, in the lymphatics, he says.
Problems arise, however, when the
rate of filtration exceeds the rate of
the lymph. This is edema.
“Using the hose analogy again,
when you have a hose that is perfo
rated and you increase the perfora
tions by a factor of 10, then (water)
would just gush out of there,” the
physiologist says.
“Now when you have a cold,
what’s happening is that these holes
in (the capillary walls) are increased
tremendously and you have, ba
sically, plasma just coming out of
your nose,” Granger says.
This also explains why an injured
ankle might swell, Granger says. If
the ankle is injured badly enough to
cause damage to the capillary wall,
then the pores in the wall will open
up, and the fluid will penetrate the
wall faster than normal.
In malnutrition, it’s a bit differ
ent.
In normal cases, the pores are
only large enough to allow water,
glucose and other nutrients nec
essary for a cell to survive to pass
through the capillary wall, he says.
Proteins are too large to permeate
the wall. Granger says.
These proteins form a suction in
the capillaries which keeps the rate
of filtration through the wall regu
lated.
“Suppose you don’t have these
proteins in the blood — that hap
pens in malnutrition,” Granger says.
“Whenever you see videos in Africa
of kids with those huge bellies, that’s
because there are very little of these
plasma proteins . . . and fluid just
seeps out (through the capillary
walls), especially in the organs of
their abdominal cavity. If you stuck a
needle in there, water would just
come pouring out.”
Granger began his research two
decades ago at the University of Mis
sissippi Medical Center. He came to
A&M ten years ago and has contin
ued his work on edema.
“Over the last 20 years, we’ve been
involved in just defining the factors
that determine how fast fluid moves
across the capillary walls under nor
mal conditions, we’ve been looking
at the physical properties of this ma
trix and we’ve been studying how
lymphatics work,” Granger says.
“After that was done, then we be
gan to focus on how the system was
disturbed whenever edema was pre
sent,” he says. “And, more recently,
we’re looking at the relationship be
tween edema, inflamation, and these
neutrophils (white blood cells) and
their poisons.
“We’re trying to understand it,
we’re not trying to develop means
for curing it. That’s for other people
to do after us. But the information
that we provide will be the basis, or
can be the basis, for developing
drugs that will provide a clinical so
lution.”
Granger is aided in his research
by four assistants, each focusing on a
specific area.
Dr. Ruth Lewis, assistant research
assistant and cell biologist, concen
trates on how the capillary wall cells
and the white blood cells interact un
der controlled variables during in
flamation.
Techniques for culturing capillary
wall cells are being researched by Dr.
Margaret Schelling, assistant re
search scientist, and Dr. Cynthia
Meininger, a post-doctorate fellow.
The effects of white blood cells on
the capillary wall and the matrix is
the main focus of Dr. David Zawieja,
a post-doctorate fellow.
Israeli official
disputes claim
of bribery
JERUSALEM (AP) — Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres said he
was not offered a bribe by a close
friend of Attorney General Ed
win Meese and “would have
thrown the aide out the window”
if he had been, a newspaper re
ported Sunday.
The daily Maariv quoted Peres
as also saying in an interview that
it was “just nastiness” to say a
bribe was behind Israel’s decision
not to attack a proposed Iraqi
pipeline.
Meese, under investigation for
corrupt business practices, has
been linked to the affair by a
1985 memo from his longstand
ing friend, E. Robert Wallach.
In the memo to Meese, Wal
lach, an American Jewish attor
ney, cited a plan to pay off a top-
ranking Israeli official in return
for a guarantee that Israel would
not bomb the pipeline.
The Los Angeles Times identi
fied the official as Peres, Israel’s
prime minister at the time.
Wallach was acting as a go-be
tween for Iraq, which sought the
pipeline as an alternative export
route because the Persian Gulf
was blocked by Iran.
The pipeline was to have run
from Iraq through Jordan and
then along the border with Israel
inside Jordanian territory to the
Red Sea port of Aqaba. It was
never built.
Dallas crowds support police at rally, call for end to racial tensions
■DALLAS (AP) — About 1,000
;)r ex'people rallied Sunday at City Hall
re jjj For an end to racial tensions ignited
by the death of an officer gunned
down by a mentally ill vagrant.
, youiHThe mostly white crowd carried
- (remarks about the department and
xartlt Police Chief Billy Prince.
■ “I thank God for every police offi-
cer in Dallas, Texas and our police
chief,” said Joanne Karr, the chair
man of a citizen’s crime watch
group.
On Jan. 23, white officer John
Glenn Chase, 25, was shot three
times in the face by a black mentally
ill homeless person. The man, Carl
Dudley Williams, was then killed af
ter he fired at pursuing officers.
According to sworn statements by
some witnesses, two or three people
in the crowd that saw the shooting
egged Williams on when he grabbed
Chase’s gun, by saying, “Shoot him.
Shoot him.” Other witnesses, how
ever, said they heard no such thing.
Prince laid the blame for the
shooting at the feet of several coun
cil members for their disparaging re
marks about the department con
cerning past shootings of minorities
and racism in hiring. Prince said the
constant “bashing” set the stage for
potential violence against police.
After the shooting and Prince’s
comments, long-simmering tensions
between the department and some
minority representatives erupted
again. Black council members Diane
Ragsdale and A1 Lipscomb have crit
icized the department and accused it
of racism in hiring, promotions and
the use of deadly force.
At Sunday’s rally, speakers, many
of them police officers, called for an
end to the feuding.
Dallas Jackson, a local radio talk
show host, was one of the few blacks
at the rally. He praised the depart
ment, but told the crowd it needs to
recognize there is a problem of some
white officers harassing minorities.
Investigator Bob Rommel com
pared criticism of the department to
floodwaters threatening to break
through a seawall “Folks we’re the
only show in town. It’s time for vou
to pick up some timber and carry it
to the wall,” he said.
In an emotional speech, Lt. David
Goelden, who had worked with
Chase, said when the slaying was an
nounced he saw black and white offi
cers helping each other cope with
the tragedy. “That’s what we need in
this city, blacks and whites caring for
each other,” he said.
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February 2,1988/Texas A&M University
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