28 
The charge to the committee was to advise the Director of NIH on the 
conditions which should be imposed upon grantees and contractors of the 
NIH before they be funded to conduct research in the area of recombinant 
DNA molecules. It furthermore was given a charge to explore needs, national 
needs, for the construction of high-containment physical facilities insofar 
as these might be indicated, and in addition it was charged to give such 
support as may be needed to the increase in the safety of the handling of 
these interesting and important materials. 
The membership of the committee you will find in your brown notebooks 
under Tab E, page 3, I believe. I am sorry, page 5. The membership as 
printed is incomplete. We are happy to add one member who is here today, 
Dr. Emmett Redford. 
The committee itself early resolved that we should have at least one 
member who is not from the biomedical science domain, and we were very 
happy therefore to be able to recruit Dr. Redford, a Professor of Political 
Science at the University of Texas, Austin, who has a long and distinguished 
career of public service and teaching. 
Dr. Redford attended our last meeting as a consultant, and is now a 
full-fledged member of our commmittee. 
In addition to the meetings of our committee, there has been consid- 
erable interest in this area, as evidenced by hearings in Senator Kennedy's 
committee on April 22, 1975, at which time some four scientists — Dr. Gaylin, 
Dr. Cohen, whose name was mentioned earlier. Dr. Brown, and Dr. Holman — 
testified before the committee on their views of the import and the hazards 
of this line of research. 
I would like now briefly to summarize what I regard as some of the 
accomplishments of the committee apart from its deliberations on the guide- 
lines, of which you will hear more. It was early recognized that it would 
be very important to disseminate promptly among workers in the field any 
significant advances which may be made, either in the perception of hazards 
or in the development of safeguards. 
In view of the delays in traditional journal publication, it was 
therefore determined to establish a newsletter. This responsibility was 
assumed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 
Dr. Chamberlayne of that Institute put together a newsletter based on his 
earlier experience with similar newsletters in other rapidly developing 
fields of science. 
Dr. Jacobs has some sample copies of this newsletter. The first 
issue came out in September. The second issue also has come out. It is 
projected to appear four times a year as a minimum. Any reasonable appli- 
cant will receive copies of the newsletter, but a condition has been 
[169] 
