MEMORANDUM 
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARI 
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH 
NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE 
TO 
Director, NIH 
DATE: September 13, 1978 
FROM 
Chief, Laboratory of Biochemistry, DCBD, NCI 
SUBJECT: Proposed Revised Guidelines for Recombinant DNA Research 
1. I want to add one comment to my previous memo (August 18th, 1978) con- 
cerning the Guidelines revisions. 
2 . We now have evidence that the avian vitellogenin gene contains large 
intervening (nonstructural) sequences within it, providing yet another ex- 
ample of a gene in a higher eukaryote that cannot be properly expressed 
within a bacterial cell. Although there are still rather few genes that 
have been shown to code for RNA requiring processing that the bacterial 
cell is not capable of carrying out, no exception has yet been found. I 
am forming the very strong impression that the consistency of the finding 
of intervening sequences is a reflection of the universal presence of such 
sequences in the genes of higher eukaryotes. For this reason, I see no 
reason to require the EK2 level of biological containment for shotgun ex- 
periments with avian DNA. 
[A-138] 
