BY A RESPONSIBLE OFFICER OF THE RECIPIENT’S INSTITUTION* WITH A 
WRITMEN STATEMENT THAT THE RECIPIENT HAS THE NECESSARY 
FACILITIES SPECIFIED BY THE RELEVANT NATIONAL GUIDELINES AND WILL 
FOLLOW THE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS THEY SPECIFY. 
OTHER COMMENTS 
DRAFTING AN ENTIRELY SATISFACTORY DEFINITION OF RECOMBINANT DNA 
MOLECULES IS NOTORIOUSLY DIFFICULT. THE EMBO COMMITTEE WISHES TO 
MAKE THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS UPON THE DEFINITION PROPOSED B v THE 
NIH ADVISORY COMMITTEE WHICH READS AS FOLLOWS: 'RECOMBINANT DNA 
MOLECULES ARE DEFINED AS MOLECULES CONSISTING OF SEGMENTS OF 
DNA FROM DIFFERENT GENOMES WHICH HAVE BEEN JOINED END-TO-END OUT- 
SIDE OF LIVING CELLS AND HAVE THE CAPACITY TO INFECT SOME HOST 
CELL AND BE MAINTAINED THEREIN.* IS THE PHRASE 'FROM DIFFERENT 
GENOMES' TO BE INTERPRETED TO INCLUDE THE GENOMES OF TWO INDIVIDUAL 
ORGANISMS OF THE SAME SPECIES OR EVEN THE SAME CLONE? THE 
DEFINITION MAKES NO MENTION OF SYNTHETIC DNA* EITHER CDNA OR 
CHEMICALLY SYNTHESIZED DNA* AND IT MIGHT BE ARGUED THAT EXPERIMENTS 
WITH SUCH DNAS ARE EXCLUDED FROM THE GUIDELINES. THE DEFINITION 
REFERS TO SEGMENTS OF DNA FROM SPECIES 'THAT ARE NOT KNOWN TO 
EXCHANGE CHROMOSOMAL DNA'* THE EMBO COMMITTEE BELIEVES THE WORD 
'CHROMOSOMAL' SHOULD BE OMITTED AND SUGGESTS THE FOLLOWING 
DEFINITION: 
[Appendix A — 96] 
