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a memorial so constructed would be fitting in the highest degree to 

 the memory of Harold Urey. 



2. Such a scheme helps meet the fundamental task of a long- 

 range research program — careers for young investigators, given form 

 within an interdisciplinary framework. There is another valuable 

 device for so broad a field. It is not a response to a steady problem; 

 rather, it is a means of bringing resources to bear on opportunities 

 for great progress as they arise. (By good fortune, we saw it at work 

 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where a group 

 organized by Dr. William Schopf out of a windfall award from the 

 National Science Foundation (NSF) studies the Precambrian record.) 

 The idea is simple and attractive. From time to time, set not by the 

 calendar but by the state of knowledge, a group of research people 

 of differing skills and approaches can be brought together to spend a 

 limited time as a team. They would probably be housed at one cen- 

 tral laboratory, bringing with them expertise, even equipment, that 

 they already possess. They work jointly for a while, yet from differ- 

 ing specialties, at a complex of problems they recognize as ripe for a 

 joint attack. One might call this a Focus Award in the Origin of Life. 

 It would be given to any investigator who would persuade the review- 

 ers that the time, place, and people were right for say a 2-year joint 

 effort by from four to ten investigators. The Focus might link 

 paleontology to biochemistry or astronomy, or it could span even 

 wider disciplines. The award would not be made each year, or in any 

 other routine way, but only on the showing that the moment had 

 arrived to strengthen the dispersed and diverse research in the broad 

 field by setting up a team, not for a long career, but for a limited 

 time. Once every few years it seems likely that such a Focus will 

 come to make sense, at a level that is overall small compared to 

 the steady flow of support; it is obviously a very attractive but quite 

 uncertain program. We have not addressed ourselves to the admini- 

 strative problems of making such awards and making certain of fiscal 

 responsibility; the task is not easy, but surely soluble. Our view is 

 that the scientific merit of the proposal and the personal reputation 

 of the proposers would have to be so high that difficulties can be 

 overcome with relative ease. The point is to supply this important 

 but diffuse field with the chance for the sort of concentration that 

 bigger laboratories with well-defined missions can now direct at their 



