40 



That brings me to a further statement and that is the electron, while it may 

 stay in the neighborhood in which it is formed, does not end up in water. Are 

 there any plausible things you can think of connected with the polypeptide chain 

 or with any of the amino acids or of the bases that are present in nucleic acid -- 

 do any of these things come to mind as suitable places where electrons might go 

 and sit down? Is there anything in the nucleic acid or the protein which is likely 

 to take the electron before it gets back to the positive ion? 



ONSAGER: Any carbonyl group. 



POLLARD: And there are loads of those. 



ONSAGER: As a matter of fact, an electron in ammonia will attach itself to 

 acetone. 



POLLARD: In other words, the polypeptide chain is the likely place where 

 radiation action in the solid protein is likely to occur. How about nucleic acid? 



ONSAGER: How about purine? 



PLATZMAN: Do you suggest that the electron affinity of CO is greater than 

 the energy of binding of the CO group to the rest of the molecule? 



ONSAGER: There is a double bond in CO. 



PLATZMAN: That is quite strong, isn't it -- the bond binding the CO to the 

 rest of the system? 



ONSAGER: All the electron has to do is to take up one state there and make 

 it a three electron bond instead of the double bond. 



BURTON: Is this a dissociative capture or mere capture here? 



ONSAGER: This is capture which is not dissociative. 



PLATZMAN: Not mere capture. Capture is very unlikely. So you should 

 not use the word "mere". 



BURTON: All right. I'll substitute "simple". Let's say that there are two 

 possible processes. One is a capture process without dissociation and the other 

 is a capture process with dissociation. If the capture process occurs with dis- 

 sociation then this is an important thing. But if it occurs without dissociation, 

 then what we are primarily concerned with eventually is how does the process 

 of neutralization occur, and we may really say that what we are concerned with 

 is how does the captured electron migrate toward the positive ion in these cases. 



POLLARD: And does it do anything permanent on its way? 



ONSAGER: If later water gets there -- 



BURTON: Let's stick to the dry case. 



KAMEN: What do you mean by dry? Nothing is dry except the virus. 



POLLARD: Protein. 



KAMEN: Protein isn't dry. It still has water in it. 



