19 



I'm going to suspend. I will be right back, and then pursue it with the other 

 two witnesses. 



[Recess.] 



Se.nator Sarba.nes. Gentlemen, I apologize for the interruption, but it is 

 obviously beyond my control. In fact, it is my intention to finish up shortly. 

 You have been here all morning, and we appreciate that very much. 



I am hoping we will get in a fair number of questions before the next inter- 

 ruption, or before I have to terminate. I think we are starting across the 

 panel. 



Mr. Ficca. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. You asked about the 

 impact of facilities on recruitment and retention of our scientists and some 

 examples of how the facilities' problems may be hampering research. 



I think we have certainly had some exodus of some of our really key and 

 outstanding scientists lately for various reasons. Not all of them, of course, are 

 attributable to the facilities. 



But I'd like to take a page from a popular film which says, "Build it and 

 they will come," and give some examples. 



We recently had the good fortune to construct a new building on cam- 

 pus — the Silvio Conte Building — which is geared toward the neurosciences 

 and now genetics research. And because of the availability of that resource, 

 we were able to attract one of the outstanding scientists in the country, Dr. 

 Francis Collins, one of the co-discoverers of the cystic fibrosis gene. And be- 

 cause we were able to attract that outstanding scientist, in turn, we've been 

 able to recruit some other very extraordinarily good and creative young re- 

 searchers in this new field and in this developing area of biotechnology. 



There's no question that the facilities have a significant impact on the abil- 

 ity to retain and recruit quality scientists. The new young scientists who are 

 the future leaders, it's very difficult to recruit them and that is a tremendous 

 advantage, and in fact is critical to sustaining our research excellence. 



I think the other area of recruitment, though, is not just scientists, but the 

 area of patients. I think the problems that I have discussed uith regard to the 

 Clinical Center complex and the ability of NIH to continue to carry out clini- 

 cal research, which has been so critical to the field of biotechnology and to the 

 scientific and biomedical research enterprise, there's no question that that is 

 threatened, and it is a severe problem that we're going to have to address in 

 the future. 



I already mentioned in my opening statement some of the problems, on an 

 operating basis, that we've had with regard to facilities and infrastructure 

 problems and deficiencies with regard to the moratorium on fume hoods. 

 This has limited the kinds of research, particularly in the areas of infectious 

 disease that we can undertake. Also, our ability to rapidly mobilize resources 

 and scientists to address an emerging epidemic, such as drug-resistant tuber- 

 culosis, has been hampered because of lack of facilities and because of the 

 improper air systems to handle that. 



At this time, though, I think it would be important to appreciate and to em- 

 phasize for the record what is being threatened: The quality and productivity 

 of intramural research. 



If it would be permitted by the Chairman, I would like Dr. Liotta to give 

 just a brief statement along those lines. 



