Freeman W Cope
Freeman W. Cope | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1930 |
| Died | 1982 (aged 51–52) |
| Residence | United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Magnetic Resonance, Tachyons |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biophysics, biochemistry |
| Institutions | U.S. Naval Air Development Center |
Freeman Widener Cope (1930–1982) was an American biophysicist, physician, and mathematician known for his application of solid-state physics to biology and for his pioneering use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in the study of living cells. He championed Gilbert Ling's association-induction hypothesis and its view of structured cellular water and cation association, and he is frequently credited as an early mentor to Raymond Damadian in the development of magnetic resonance imaging.
Biography
Cope was chief of the Biochemistry Laboratory of the U.S. Naval Air Development Center in Warminster, Pennsylvania. Trained as a physician, physicist, and mathematician, he applied the methods of solid-state physics to problems in biology and biochemistry rather than the approaches of conventional wet chemistry. He died in 1982; a memoriam by Raymond Damadian appeared in the journal Physiological Chemistry and Physics (Vol. 14, No. 5, 1982).
Scientific contributions
Cope's research emphasized the application of solid-state physics to biology and biochemistry and the use of NMR of deuterium, sodium-23, and potassium-39 in the analysis of water structuring and cation association within cells. His 1969 paper reported NMR evidence, obtained using D2O, for structured water in muscle and brain. Working within Gilbert Ling's association-induction framework, he argued that living cells do not depend on membrane pumps but on the physical ordering of water and ions by cellular proteins.
Cope taught Raymond Damadian how to use magnetic resonance instruments in the laboratory. Together, Cope and Damadian were among the first researchers to obtain a potassium signal from a live bacteria culture. Damadian later credited this collaboration as decisive to his own development of the world's first magnetic resonance imaging scanner, for which Damadian was subsequently honored. In his memoriam for Cope, Damadian wrote:
Had I never met Cope and been introduced to the NMR at his urging, I would never have had the NMR scanning idea. I comment on this to stress the imprint of the life of my dear friend on humanity and on science lest the enormity of his contributions pass unnoticed.
Cope also authored "A Medical Application of the Ling Association-Induction Hypothesis: The High Potassium, Low Sodium Diet of the Gerson Cancer Therapy," written in 1978 and published in Physiological Chemistry and Physics (Vol. 10, No. 5). The paper interpreted the high-potassium, low-sodium regimen of the Gerson cancer therapy in terms of Ling's hypothesis, suggesting that such an environment could partially restore damaged cellular proteins toward their normal configuration. This work was later cited in support of the therapy by the Gerson Institute. An account of that connection is given by Gar Hildenbrand: http://gerson-research.org/docs/HildenbrandGLG-1990-5/index.html
In more speculative theoretical work, Cope proposed a "gas of tachyon magnetoelectric dipoles" hypothesis, published across several papers in Physiological Chemistry and Physics, in which he attempted to account for a range of phenomena in terms of hypothetical faster-than-light particles. Such proposals fall outside mainstream scientific consensus.
Articles:
- "Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Evidence using D2O for Structured Water in Muscle and Brain", Biophysical Journal, V9, N3, pp. 303-319 (Mar 1969).
- "Kinetics of Light Emission by Photosynthetic Systems: Second Order Light Decay Kinetics Means Elovich Kinetics in a Solid State Reaction; 1.5 Order Light Decay Kinetics Means Second Order Reaction Kinetics," Mathematics and Statistics, V37, N1 (Mar 1975).
- "A Medical Application of the Ling Association-Induction Hypothesis: The High Potassium, Low Sodium Diet of the Gerson Cancer Therapy", Physiology Chemistry and Physics, V10, N5, pp. 465-468 (1978).