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The Early Days of Steroid Radioimmunoassays at the Worcester Foundation

In the late 1960s, the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts continued to maintain its position as a veritable "Mecca" of steroid research. The faculty included Drs. A. and H. Brodie, Burstein, Caspi, Chang, Lloyd, McCracken, Peron, Romanoff, S. and J. Tait, Townsley, Williams, and others. Postdoctoral training programs in Steroid Biochemistry and in Reproductive Biology were thriving, a distillation plant was producing "in house" organic solvents of chromatographic grade, and TLC, Bush I, and Bush II were parts of the vocabulary. The "double isotope" and "protein binding" assays were in routine use for quantitation of steroid hormones in biological fluids. At the same time, Dr. Guy Abraham was laboring in a one-person laboratory on an idea of devising a radioimmunoassay for estradiol. Unless I am mistaken, most of the biochemists and "mainstream" steroid workers were giving this project a probability of success which was not significantly different from zero. However, Guy was about to prove everyone wrong with his success in developing a solid-phase radioimmunoassay system for estradiol-17β (1). At about the same time, a group of young scientists associated with the training programs was busy immunizing animals with various steroid conjugates in an attempt to interfere with hormone action by active and passive immunization and to develop radioimmunoassays. This group consisted of Drs. Burton Caldwell, Rex Scaramuzzi, Steven Tillson, and Ian Thorneycroft. Their efforts were singularly successful with a string of exciting papers appearing in various journals, and radioimmunoassays for progesterone, testosterone, and androstenedione becoming a reality in rapid succession. This was soon followed by a report at an opening session of The 1971 Endocrine Society Meeting of successful development of RIA for prostaglandin F₂ (2). The pace of progress in this group was rapid and publication of the various methods often lagged behind. Also, there seemed

Received July 10, 1991.