Results:

These pictures were taken on the 7th day:

• The picture on the left was kept under optimum conditions and showed maximum growth.

• The right pea was kept under the lung conditions.

Simulation of Lung Conditions for Pea Plant GrowthFatima Ezzeddine, Yassemine Khawajkie, Carole Baraké and N.A. Saliba

Chemistry Department, American University of Beirut

Background:

• Ron Sveden is a 75 year old emphysema patient that had a pea plant germinate in his lung.

• Doctors believe Mr. Sveden ate a pea that "went down the wrong way" before sprouting to 12mm in size. The warm and moist

conditions are thought to have encouraged it to grow (Leach, 2010).

• Can Mr. Sveden’s case be simulated under the same conditions of pH and temperature?

Experimental Procedure:

• Assuming that the pea seeds did not extract any nutrients from the lung tissues, cotton was used as growth medium.

• pH and temperature were varied using a phosphate buffer and an incubator.

• Root growth was measured in millimeters everyday at 11am.

• Thus, growth was measured for samples according to the conditions in the following table:

• Three samples were prepared under each condition, as shown in the table above, for a total of 12 samples.

• The phosphate buffer was used to create solutions with the two different pHs (7.4 and 6.2).

• These solutions were used to keep the cotton matrix moist.

• In the end, two identical trays were obtained. One was kept at room temperature ( 24°C) and the other was kept in an ̴�

incubator at 40.5°C because that was the only incubator available.

References:

1) Leach, Ben. (2010, August 12). 'Cancer' patient grows pea plant in his lung. The Telegraph, Retrieved from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7940710/Cancer-patient-grows-pea-plant-in-his-lung.h

2) Riofrio , Marianne . (n.d.). Growing peas and snap beans in the home garden. Unpublished manuscript, The Ohio State

University, Ohio, United States. Retrieved from http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1617.html

3) Sarfaruz, Irum. (2011, February 11). The optimum germination temperature for peas. eHow Home, Retrieved from

http://www.ehow.com/facts_7982146_optimum-germination-temperature-peas.html

Discussion:

• The following conditions were not available in the experiment and we suspect that this may have affected our germination

results:

― Temperature of 37°C

― Glucosamine and galactosamine

• Glycine and proline are components of the elastin and collagen fibers of the lungs. They may have affected the germination in

Sveden’s case. However, these amino acids were also unavailable.

• As expected, the lung conditions allowed seed germination, yet this germination was not as good as the one under optimum

conditions.

• Based on our results, we concluded that the temperature effect outweighs the pH effect on germination.

• We would like to point out that we kept our seeds in the dark at all times (except for brief periods for growth measurements).

Temperature 24 °C Temperature 40.5 °C

pH 6.2pH 7.4

Ron Sveden’s Lungs Optimal Conditions for Germination

pH 7.4 6.2

Temperature (°C) 37 24

Galactosamine/glucosamine 3.2 0?

24 °C 40.5 °C

pH 6.2pH 7.4

This graph shows the growth in millimeters of pea plant roots over 7 days. Maximum growth was observed

under the optimum conditions (green). Less growth was observed under lung conditions (blue).

Acknowledgement:

• Dr Atamian Samson for allowing us to use the incubator for an entire week.

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