Performance of a magnetically stabilized bed reactor with immobilized yeast cells.

This paper is focused on the possibility to apply the magnetic stabilization technique in bioprocessing. The feasibility of a continuous ethanol fermentation process with immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells in a magnetically stabilized bed (MSB) was demonstrated. The fermentation processes were carried out in an external magnetic field, transverse to the fluid flow. The flexibility to change the bed expansion owing to the independent change of the fluid flow and the field intensity (the "magnetization FIRST" mode) permitted the creation of fixed beds with different particle arrangements, which affected the bed porosity, the effective fluid-particle contact area, and the mass transfer processes on the particle-fluid interface. As a result, higher ethanol concentration, ethanol production, and glucose uptake rates than in conventional packed bed reactor were reached.

[Factors affecting the antigenicity of exogenous insulin in diabetics]. / Izsledvane na niakoi faktori, koito povliiavat antigennostta na ekzogenniia insulin pri diabetno bolni.

The antigenic properties of insulin and the effect of additional factors on them, HL-A-phenotype including were studied under different conditions in 3 groups of diabetic patients (I--71 patients treated with insulin, II--48 diabetic patients--never treated with insulin and III--51 diabetics, treated at least 6 months with conventional insulin and later treated with monocomponent insulin "Actrapid"). In some other experiments, making use of 7 groups guinea pigs, the antigenicity of different trade insulin preparations was tested. The antibody titre was assessed by the insulin-binding serum capacity, incubated with 131I-insulin. The authors established a significant dependence of antibody titre on insulin during insulin treatment and insignificant--with the age of the patients, duration of insulin treatment and HL-A phenotype. The last correlation with HLA-phenotype B 15 was highly significant. A reduction of antibody titre was established after changing from conventional to highly-purified monocomponent insulin preparation and anew elevation of titre with the resumed treatment with non-purified insulin forms according to special ways. All insulin preparations, that the separate groups of guinea pigs were injected, led to significant increase of antibody titre in the experimental animals. The better purified of them, however, as "insulin Comb" and Bulgarian "neutral porcine insulin"--Pharmachim, are less antigenic. A treatment with highly purified preparations is recommended for the diabetic patients with HLA-phenotype B 15.

[Comparison between the incidence of diabetic macroangiopathy in a group of diabetics from Bulgaria and from 13 other countries]. / Sravnenie mezhdu chestota na diabetnata makroangiopatiia v grupa diabetno bolni ot Bulgariia i ot drugi trinadeset strani.

A Bulgarian team, within the frames of a multinational study on diabetic vascular disease, sponsored by WHO, studied a group of 473 diabetic patients by the inquiry method and by the determination of blood cholesterin and creatinine and urine albumin. The results were compared with those of the whole group (6695 patients from 14 countries) and with each national group separately. A higher percentage of insulin-treated patients was established in the Bulgarian group as compared with the whole group, fewer hypertonics, lower mean cholesterol values, a little higher average body weight and considerably lower percentages of smokers. The various forms of macroangiopathy among the Bulgarian group proved to be in percentages, approaching the average percentages for the whole group or little lower than them (e.g. for the category "probable infarctions" and "cerebral hemorrhages"). Only for the category "IHD" the affection percentage among the Bulgarian group significantly surpassed that of the whole group. Since the Bulgarian group, as regards the possible risk factors, is in a more favourable condition, the higher IHD percentage is admitted to be due to the circumstances that patients with graver states have been included in the group. That is suggested by the higher percentage of patients (52%), insulin-treated. The severity of diabetes is concluded to be a significant factor in the development of macroangiopathy.

[Therapeutic qualities of a lente preparation of swine insulins manufactured by Pharmachem]. / Prouchvane vurkhu lechebnite kachesta na svinskiia insulinov preparat Lente--proizvodstvo Farmakhim.

The therapeutic effect of swine insulin preparation Lente, "Pharmachim" production was studied in 50 diabetics. Its hypoglycemizing activitis compared with that of standardized insulin Lente--"Novo", extract of bovine pancreas. The Bulgarian preparation was found to be very similar to the preparation Lente-Novo in its pharma-codynamic properties and could successfully be used in the diabetes melitus treatment. Insulin Lente Pharmachim is presumed to have lower antigenicity as an extract of swine pancreas, which is actually its great advantage for the therapeutic practice.

Insulin-binding antibodies in diabetic patients. Dynamic aspects of their formation.

Insulin-binding antibodies in serum of two groups of diabetics were followed up for a longer period of time. The first group had never been treated with exogenous insulin and showed a low antibody titer, with negligible changes in their level and diminishing of antibody production during ageing. Patients who had received insulin presented some differences: strong dependence of antibody titer on insulin dose; the very high doses, however, as well as a long period of treatment with insulin were accompanied with lowering of antibody concentration.