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1 scientists in the audience if it is possible, or even 
2 conceivable, to use RNA and not DNA vectors in cloning. 
3 Would the use of feline leukemia virus or Rous sarcoma 
4 virus as a vector to carry RNA sequences into a cell 
5 be possible under the NIH guidelines, or would it be 
6 exempted from it? And, once inside the cell, would 
1 this RNA serve, possibly, as a template for the produc- 
g tion of a complementary DNA sequence that might be 
9 incorporated into the chromosome of that host? 
10 I am not pointing this out to be critical 
11 of the guidelines; I just do not know the answer to 
12 this. In the original version there was an oversight, 
13 and synthetic DNA was not considered under the guide- 
14 lines, and there was a good deal of controversy which 
15 followed. I think perhaps that the letters DNA should 
16 be eliminated from the definition, and "nucleic acid" 
17 should be substituted, because RNA for some organisms, 
18 is the genomic material. 
19 The third comment I would like to make con- 
20 cerns the description and the role of the biological 
21 safety officer. I perhaps am fairly unique in the 
22 United States, because I am a non-federal agency, 
23 non- industr ial biological safety officer who runs a 
24 biological safety program that fulfills most of the 
25 requirements described in the new laboratory safety 
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