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B R O W N UNIVERSITY Providence, Rhode Island • 02912 
Division of Biology and Medicine 
September 20, 1978 
Dr. Donald S. Fredrickson 
Director 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, MD 20014 
Dear Dr. Fredrickson, 
I would like to comment on Section II-B-3C(5) of the 
proposed revised guidelines for recombinant DNA research: 
"Laboratory doors shall be self-closing." 
We were in the final stages of constructing a P3 facility 
when the proposed revised guidelines came out. We had designed 
the facility to use sliding doors on the grounds that swinging 
doors would produce an undesirable pumping action. The 
proposed requirement that doors be self-closing now presents 
considerable difficulties, however. 
Whereas it is relatively easy and inexpensive to make a 
swinging door self-closing, this is not the case for sliding 
doors. After looking into the matter at some length, we have 
found that the only workable solution is to make the sliding 
doors completely automatic, i.e., electrically operated. 
Unfortunately, this is rather expensive. We have estimates 
that start at $1500-2000 per door, and we are not sure that 
this reflects the final overall cost. 
Since sliding doors do seem to offer some advantages over 
swinging doors, I would like to suggest that the guidelines 
be worded in such a way as to make facility design compatible 
with either sliding or swinging doors. 
I would suggest that the guidelines deal with the 
intent of closed doors as a practice rather than a facility 
requirement. Of all the practices that are required of workers 
in a P3 facility, that of keeping the door closed is the most 
easily monitored and the least demanding. Thus it does 
not seem absolutely necessary to require that this aspect of 
P3 work be fully automated. 
[A-215] 
