473 



agency of our Government by congressional legislation is going to 

 establish a strong program, is going to conduct and sponsor research 

 and going to do this in a very positive manner. 



I would like to point out the interrelationships of some of these 

 agencies and what takes place when Ave do not have a coordinated 

 program. 



We find that the National Cancer Institute is beginning to screen 

 marine products : marine algae, invertebrates, and eventually fish, for 

 biochemical substances having antitumor properties. Moreover, it is 

 now known and positively documented that certain of these organ- 

 isms possess biochemicals having antitumor activity. 



The National Cancer Institute is dependent upon identification, a 

 critical documentation of the organism, data on the origin of the or- 

 ganism, the environment from which this organism was taken and 

 a taxonomic identification of the scientific name of the organism so 

 that they can reproduce the field studies if necessary. The laboratory 

 testing of these materials is very costly. 



Now we find ourselves with a situation in which we have the Smith- 

 sonian Institution w^hich is not geared in its thinking to the work 

 of the National Cancer Institute. 



The work of the Smithsonian Institution is to try to develop the 

 overall field of systematics, biology, and so forth. 



Nevertheless, we have medical agencies that are dependent upon 

 systematic biology. I could include the National Institute of Mental 

 Health, Neurological Diseases and Blindness, the National Heart In- 

 stitute and so on, which have similar needs. 



What I am trying to say is that we cannot vigorously pursue as a 

 Nation the business of trying to determine the biomedical applications 

 of these organisms unless we are backstopped by such agencies as the 

 Smithsonian, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian 

 Oceanographic Sorting Center, and so forth, because these are the 

 grou^DS, that must provide the basic data necessary to determine the 

 name of a medically useful organism. This is a very vital requirement 

 because we are now finding that many of these marine organisms 

 produce valuable medicinal products. 



We do not have a coordinated or integrated program. We need a 

 National Institute of Marine Medicine and Pharmacology that can 

 begin to assume by virtue of its congressional mandate the respon- 

 sibilities for undertaking such a task. 



At present we do not have such a national facility. As a result of this 

 we do not have available to our Nation adequate field stations, or 

 laboratories for use in biomedical oceanography. This brings up the 

 next point that I would like to make if I may, Mr. Chairman. 



I would like to direct your attention to this world map. Let us take 

 the geographical distribution of marine organisms, with reference to 

 their biochemical constituents and the toxic agents that exist within 

 these marine organisms. We find the greatest concentration of these 

 organisms in numbers and varieties of species within the Indo-Pacific 

 area. The heart of this region is the Malay Archipelago. There are 

 about 23,000 islands that make up the Malay Archipelago. Our closest 

 American possession to this rich resource is certain parts of Micro- 

 nesia, namely Guam. We also have access to the Trust Territory of the 

 Pacific Islands, and this is the single resource area that frankly we 

 have been most negligent about developing. 



26-563— 69— pt. 1 31 



