• Question: is there such thing as an Anti-Catalyst, that could slow reactions down, if so could that be used to increase the length of a human life, or possibly slow down cancer cells from causing harm

    Asked by SubconsciousCat to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: John Fossey

      John Fossey answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Not sure about that – but sometimes our reactions proceed unexpectedly slowly

    • Photo: Robert Williams

      Robert Williams answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      There are many anti-catalysts.
      Sometimes you may wish to moderate a reaction to get the right product and you can use ‘poisons’ that limit the reactivity of a catalyst.
      For example.
      Palladium on charcoal reacts with hydrogen gas under pressure with a wide variety of organic compounds- to make useful chemicals like drug precursors.
      If you add another chemical such as barium sulphate to the palladium this moderates the action of the palladium in the presence of hydrogen to selctively produce the right product and reduce the chance of impurities forming.
      In nature Scientists are finding molecules that act to slow down the ageing of cells – such as in the Blind Mole Rat.
      Also other scientists have discovered that hydrogen sulphide [Rotten Egg] gas at low concentrations may cause the [human?] body to go into a type of hibernation – so far it has only been trialled with laboratory animals as hydrogen sulphide is toxic to humans under some conditions.
      But this research may help astronauts of the future travel to the stars – best film to watch this is 2001 A Space Oddessy! – when the survey team are put into hibernation beafore Hal kills them as they approach the Black Monolith orbiting Jupiter

    • Photo: Laura Finney

      Laura Finney answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Chemotherapy is used at the moment to slow tumour growth and slow it down. As is radiotherapy. I guess this kind of like an anti-catalyst, especially chemotherapy. However, the definition of a catalyst is you can get it back at the end and it is unchanged. I am not sure we could get anything we put in the human body back after it is used like a true catalyst unfortunately. 🙁 Cancer is awful so I do hope that one day we can cure it all.

    • Photo: Luke Williams

      Luke Williams answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      There are plenty of chemicals that would slow down enzyme reactions, though they wouldn’t necessarily work in the body. They aren’t anti-catalysts really, but they will slow down reactions.

      There are various different types, irreversible and reversible inhibitors, as well as competitive and non competitive. Even strange seeming things like having too much starting material can slow down an enzyme. Also having too much product can slow them down too.

      In short, enzymes can be pretty awkward things to get going, its more often that you want to speed them up rather than slow them down.

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