biomedical research have been at productive undersea research centers at 

 the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia and at the State University of 

 New York at Buffalo. The hyperbaric center at Duke University is the site of 

 joint and continuing Duke-U.S. Navy saturated diving experiments. 



Other research centers have been established as follows: a hyperbaric 

 facility at the Virginia Mason Research Center, Seattle, Wash. ; the Wrights- 

 ville Marine Biological Laboratory, Wrightsville Beach, N.C.; and the 

 Marine Biomedical Institute at Galveston, Tex. The Undersea Medical 

 Society was formed in 1967 and is now active with over 450 members. 



The main focus of the Navy's effort in the biomedical area is in its ocean 

 engineering programs. It consists of efforts in the man-in-the-sea project and 

 the biomedical programs of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and the 

 Office of Naval Research. 



The biomedical and life science programs are directed toward main- 

 taining the diver as an effective functional unit in the stressful environment 

 of modern naval operations. Experimental dives in chambers and at sea 

 have been made beyond the 1,000-foot level. It appears that divers will be 

 able to perform useful work at depths of 1,000 feet and somewhat beyond 

 provided the technology and diving equipment are sufficiently developed 

 to maintain them for the long durations required for compression and decom- 

 pression and so long as improvements are made in communications, thermal 

 balance, guidance, and navigation. Diving much deeper than 1,200 feet 

 will certainly be achieved, but the depth and rate will depend upon the 

 support available for needed basic and applied technological and biomedical 

 research. One possible solution — though a radical one — may be liquid 

 breathing. 



The principal laboratories participating in the program are the Naval 

 Medical Research Institute, the Navy Submarine Medical Research Labora- 

 tory and the Experimental Diving Unit. The Navy Medical Research Insti- 

 tute program is devoted to undersea biomedical research and investigations 

 of decompression sickness, inert and other gas physiology, hyperbaric bio- 

 chemistry, thermal problems, microbiology and toxicology, psychology, and 

 biophysics. 



The Submarine Medical Research Laboratory is investigating submarine 

 escape, diving physiology, crew selection and performance and hearing and 

 vision. The Experimental Diving Unit tests both new diving techniques and 

 equipment, and provides decompression chambers with a 1,000-foot wet 

 and dry depth capability. 



In the civil sector of the man-in-the-sea program, the University of Penn- 

 sylvania Institute of Environmental Medicine has conducted many of the 

 studies on which current knowledge of the physiology of diving is based. 

 It has also trained naval scientists engaged in undersea medical research. 

 The State University of New York has been the leader in unraveling the 

 fundamental mechanisms of respiration in the hyperbaric environment. 



Developing Needed Support Systems 



In the past, advances in physiological knowledge and technological de- 

 velopment have often alternated in allowing man to go further and deeper 



111 



