Even though the discovery of cyclic AMP and the idea of second messengers were of great importance to the world of medicine, Sutherland's findings were actually achieved through strenuous trial and error. First of all, Sutherland and Ted Rall were convinced that a sucrose homogenate of liver cells was absolutely necessary in order to keep their cells healthy and proliferating. This inference was made by Rall from his experience studying mitochondria, which responded well to these sucrose homogenates; however, it had nothing to do with what was being studied at the time. It turned out that this sucrose was not necessary for the homogenate and once they set up the experiment without sucrose they were able to see more effective results. Secondly, Sutherland initially believed that there was something vital about the intact cell, and that disrupting its structure would not produce any hormonal effect. However, after some debate, Rall had convinced Sutherland to use liver homogenates. Once they had witnessed nearly a doubling of the rate of LP activation, they knew this belief in that keeping cells intact was crucial to studying the effects of hormones was not necessarily true, at least in this case. Finally, Sutherland had decided to ignore Jacques Berthet's request to conduct the same experiment using proper lab technique, specifically the Lehninger Hard Pour, where the supernatant material was decanted by pouring the liquid into another test tube once the particulate fraction reached the top of the original tube. Berthet not only demanded this step of the procedure be done through careful aspiration, he also critiqued the lack of specificity during centrifugation with respect to suspension height, rpm and time. The willingness of Sutherland and his associates to modify their experimental procedures and mistaken assumptions allowed them to make the discoveries that they made.