TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Chapter 61. Nitric Oxide as an Adjunct A1 - Lewandowski, Klaus A2 - Tobin, Martin J. Y1 - 2013 N1 - T2 - Principles and Practice of Mechanical Ventilation, 3e AB - As the saying goes, unexpected scientific discoveries are often the most important. The “principle of limited sloppiness,” a term coined to describe fortuitous or accidental discoveries, hit in the 1970s, when Zawadski, a technician in the laboratories of Robert F. Furchgott, failed to follow his superior’s directions correctly and did not remove the endothelium in a rabbit aorta preparation. In this preparation, acetylcholine caused potent relaxation whereas contraction was expected. Shortly thereafter, it was established that acetylcholine was acting on endothelial cell receptors to produce a substance that could diffuse to the vascular smooth muscle and initiate its relaxation.1 This substance was called endothelium-derived relaxing factor. It took another 8 years for independent working groups to confirm that the chemical structure of endothelium-derived relaxing factor was identical to that of nitric oxide (NO).2,3 SN - PB - The McGraw-Hill Companies CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/29 UR - accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=57080538 ER -