Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 
It is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the NIH 
guidelines on recombinant DNA research. 
In June, the National Institutes of Health, with the approval of 
the Secretary of HEW and the Assistant Secretary for Health, issued 
guidelines to govern NIH-supported research on recombinant DNA molecules. 
Accompanying the guidelines was a document describing in detail the 
issues which the Director of NIH considered in reaching the decision to 
release the guidelines. These guidelines, governing research conducted 
at the laboratories of NIH as well as projects supported by grants and 
contracts, delineate stringent safeguards for the conduct of experiments 
involving the production of recombinant DNA molecules and their insertion 
into organisms such as bacteria. The object of the guidelines is to 
minimize the risks associated with recombinant DNA research — primarily 
through a series- of procedures aimed at physical and biological contain- 
ment of possibly dangerous organisms — while permitting research of great 
potential benefit to mankind. The NIH guidelines replaced the recom- 
mendations from the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules, 
which permitted research under less strict conditions. 
Recombinant DNA molecules are formed in the laboratory from recom- 
bination of segments of deoxyribonucleic acid, the material that determines 
the hereditary characteristics of all living cells. These techniques, 
permitting genetic information from quite different organisms to be 
combined, have a remarkable potential for furthering the understanding 
of fundamental biochemical processes of both lower and higher organisms. 
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