United States Agricultural 
Department of Research 
Agriculture Service 
January 24, 1983 
Dr. William J. Gartland, Jr. 
Director, Office of Recombinant 
DNA Activities, NIH 
Building 31, Room 4A52 
Bethesda, MD 20205 
Dear Dr. Gartland: 
In response to your recent memorandum for solicitation of comments on revised 
guidelines for research involving recombinant DNA molecules, the BARC Biosafety 
Committee offers the following comments - Generally speaking we have no problems 
at present with the current guidelines and the time taken with deliberations 
seems to be appropriate. At the present time 11 recombinant DNA projects are 
on-going at the research center, but all are exempt from the current guidelines. 
Two additional projects will be forthcoming that come under the Guidelines but 
we do not expect any problems in the interpretation of the required containment 
as specified by the Guidelines for these projects. There has been some question 
as to what will constitute "relevant information" under III-A (Experiments that 
Require RAC Review and NIH an. (sic) Approval Before Initiation) pertaining to 
III-A-2 (Deliberate release into the environment of any organism containing 
recombinant DNA)? Presumably NIH will request any missing necessary data at 
the time of submission. 
The committee has no particular disagreement with the RAC in regard to contain- 
ment for a particular experiment at this time and the Guidelines don't appear 
to be too stringent as perhaps they were in the past. The BARC Biosafety 
Committee meets from 2 to 8 times per year depending on the needs and/or problems 
that may arise with biosafety at the Research Center. All parties concerned 
(Pi's, Committee members, Institute chairmen. Director) received updates on the 
Guidelines and other actions taken dealing with biosafety periodically. 
The BARC Biosafety Committee acts as a general biosafety committee and deals 
with many biosafety matters in addition to recombinant DNA research. 
Best wishes. 
Sincerely, 
Northeastern Region 
Beltsville Agricultural 
Research Center 
Beltsville, Maryland 
20705 
ROBERT M. FAUST, Ph. D. 
Chairperson, BARC Biosafety Committee 
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