ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION 



moderator: s. hestrin 



The 'Round Table' lasted for two sessions and only a few 

 comments can be cited here. 



SESSION I 



Moderator (Hestrin): We have been called to the 'Round 

 Table' under an injunction to seek for simple formulations of the 

 dormancy problem, and to try to find common denominators 

 in the mechanisms of cryptobiosis as they occur in widely 

 divergent forms of life. It will be one of our tasks, no doubt, 

 merely to determine whether indeed it is reasonable at all to 

 seek for such common denominators. 



At first approach one is inclined to suspect that there may be 

 at least two quite different classes of cryptobiosis which should 

 be considered separately : (a) a transient class in which metabolic 

 depression induced exogenously is promptly reversed when the 

 environment is returned to normal; (b) a persistent class in 

 which metabolic depression induced exogenously and/or en- 

 dogenously, is not directly reversed on the reversion of the 

 environment to normal. 



{I) Anhydrobiosis 



Let us first consider a kind of cryptobiosis, which is perhaps 

 of the exogenous kind — the state of anhydrobiosis induced by 

 lyophilization. Would Dr. Kohn care to recapitulate for us 

 some of his conclusions in this regard? 



Kohn: In lyophilization you suspend metabolism by re- 

 moving water. Most of my lecture dealt with the technical 

 details of the method used in removing the water so as not to 

 kill the organism in the process. This removal takes place in the 

 frozen state, and one of our most important findings is that, 



