One idea grew from the encountering of coding difficulties due, for example, to the frequent 

 omission of details of test technique or to the obscurity of details needed for the CBCC code line 

 (including adequate identification of chemicals and organisms used) or to the omission of test measure- 

 ments leading to an author's evaluation. It seemed possible that the preparation and distribution of a 

 set of recommendations for preparing chemical-biological data for publication might be eventually a 

 logical undertaking of the Center. Possibly merely the general use of the Center would have demon- 

 strated the necessity of including details of tests which might permit subsequent correlation with infor- 

 mation from other tests of similar or diverse natures. 



The CBCC might have served as a depository and reference center for methods of testing for, 

 and evaluation of, chemical actions on biological systems and, further, might have been influential 

 thereby in standardization of testing methods, for which a need is generally felt today. This activity 

 could conceivably and logically have grown out of the CBCC experience with its own diversified 

 Screening Program and from its general information collection. 



It seems likely that an increasing number of specialized biological and chemical information 

 collections will be established in the near future, many needing classification and coding schemes 

 for categories of information not needed for chemical- biological test data. Uses, activities, geo- 

 graphical distributions and origins, diets, and requirements of organisms, as well as physical prop- 

 erties of chemicals and processes and reagents used in chemicals' syntheses are examples of such 

 categories, any one of which might be needed for more than one information collection. The develop- 

 ment, assistance in development, or the collection of these classification and coding schemes for 

 information categories accessory to the categories needed specifically by the CBCC might reasonably 

 have been a function of the Center and a function of considerable value, judging from inquiries re- 

 ceived by the Center about schemes for these categories. 



The major and more concretely defined aspirations of the Center were implicit in its name. It 

 hoped to serve as a coordinator for development of methods for handling chemical- biological information- - 

 to be able, as a result of its pioneering efforts, to serve as a consultant to programs anywhere con- 

 cerned with related information-handling problems. It also hoped to be coordinative of testing programs 

 in the sense of making available chemical-biological information by collecting and exhaustively indexing 

 unpublished as well as published data falling within that definition, the objective being to prevent , to 

 the extent possible, duplication of effort and to suggest new directions of testing . Related to this, it 

 aspired to studies of a correlative nature (chemical structure and biological response), using data from 

 its coded information collection. Its Screening Program's objective was coordinative in that the Program 

 served as a clearing house for untested chemicals and biological testing facilities. Finally, it regarded 

 as possible even coordination for, or assistance in, related activities of which the sponsoring of sym- 

 posia and the collection of standard testing methods might be named as examples. 



While these aspirations were never to be fully or, in some cases, even partially realized, it 

 can now at least be hoped that the Biology Code and Key and the observations made here on the Center's 

 functioning and use of the Codes will be found useful guides for future efforts in coding biological and 

 chemical-biological information. The published Codes, both Chemical and Biology, may perhaps prove 

 the distillate of, and only memorial to, the effort and ambitions of the CBCC. 



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