One representative of the Veterans' Administration. Six medical or scientific individuals distinguished for their contributions to cancer and/or other research. Six laymen of proven experience and competence in the field of scientific endeavor. 4. The commission should be assigned for administrative purposes to one of the duly constituted Government agencies. 5. The advice of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences should be sought in naming the commission and in guiding its work. 6. All Government activity in the field of cancer research, including that set up under the National Cancer Act should be placed under this commission, including the National Cancer Institute. The existing National Advisory Cancer Council should be replaced by the commission. 7. The scientific and technical consultant personnel employed under this instrument should be not liable to civil service. 8. All money appropriated under the authorization provided in this instrument should be available until expended. 9. All Federal funds for cancer research should be expended in the support and enlargement of existing public and private institutions as well as in the creation of needed new institutions and in coordination of the work of public and private agencies in such a way as to encourage continued voluntary contributions. 10. Attention is invited to the document appended entitled "The Research Attack on Cancer" in which is described the work of the National Research Council by contract with the American Cancer Society. (The document referred to is as follows:) THE RESEARCH ATTACK ON CANCER, 1946 A REPORT ON THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY RESEARCH PROGRAM (By the Committee on Growth, of the National Research Council) FOREWORD It is with great pleasure that the American Cancer Society publishes the first formal report of the committee on growth of the National Research Council. The committee was organized by the Council to develop a comprehensive program for the research attack on cancer, to be supported by funds raised by the American Cancer Society. The report tells the story of the great work which has been begun with funds raised by the society this year, and which we hope to expand with at least $3,000,000 of the funds which the society is seeking this year. This report will, I know, be a great source of satisfaction to all those who have already contributed to this program. By so doing they have helped to launch what may well become the most notable undertaking in the whole history of the attack on cancer. It is our hope that this report will also be a means of enlisting the far greater support which is needed to enlarge the scope of the attack against this most dreaded disease. ERIC A. JOHNSTON, Chairman of the Board, The American Cancer Society. COMMITTEE ON GROWTH, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL A REPORT TO THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INTRODUCTION Nine months have elapsed since, in June 1945, the American Cancer Society designated the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences as its advisory agent for research, and the council appointed, within its division of medical sciences, the committee on growth, with a membership of 14, representing the major disciplines in medicine and the sciences basic to medical research. To fulfill the obligations assumed by the council, the committee on growth was charged broadly with the task of analyzing in all its aspects the field of cancer research, of inviting and initiating necessary investigations, and of developing coordinated programs for the implementation of the general aims and purposes to which the committee and the society are dedicated. The problem of cancer has been well described as the problem of ceaseless, profitless, and often uncontrollable growth. The committee, at its inception, therefore, recognized and has proceeded on the premise that the researches necessary to achieve understanding of the abnormal mechanisms of malignant growth can have a firm basis only in a far deeper insight into the fundamental mechanisms of normal cellular growth than science and human ingenuity have thus far been able to disclose. The initial effort then has been made along these lines: (1) A survey of existing activities in cancer research; (2) the appointment of 19 advisory panels of experts in specialized areas of research and, under the leadership of these panels, the holding of conferences for the prompt exchange of information and for determining and giving direction to needed programs of investigation; (3) the support of investigations, both basic and clinical, directed toward the uncovering of essential new information not only in the specific field of cancer but also in the field of the phenomena of growth fundamental to it; (4) the encouragement of young scientists of ability, through the award of fellowships in investigative medicine and the basic sciences, to enter the complex and difficult field of cancer research; and (5) the formulation of strategies for the ultimate assault on the problem of human cancer. SURVEY OF CANCER RESEARCH Returns from questionnaires mailed to approximately 500 institutions and hospitals in the United States made clear the fact that many highly qualified laboratories, if given further support, would greatly expand their interest and activities in the field of cancer research. Forty-two of these institutions (Federal institutions not included) indicated that they had together $560,051 available for cancer research and could put to immediate use an additional $1,469,302. This sum is hardly indicative of the real need as many institutions known to be conducting, or well qualified to conduct competent cancer research, did not reply; and it is evident from applications for research grants subsequently received that many institutions that did reply had underestimated the needs and desires of competent workers in their laboratories. ORGANIZATION Divisions and Panels: Committee on fellowships and central office It was early evident to the committee that a gigantic task lay ahead and that successfully to attack it the wisest minds in American scientific research would be needed. Therefore, experts in special fields from all parts of the United States were invited to serve on advisory panels. These panels, 19 in number, were organized into the broad divisional groupings of physics, chemistry, biology, and clinical investigations. A committee on fellowships was appointed, consisting of the chairmen of these four divisions acting under the general chairmanship of a designated member of the main committee. Finally, a central office was established in the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council Building in Washington through which the fast ramifying business of the committee could be channeled, and competent professional assistants were employed to devote their time in whole or in part to forwarding the purposes and expediting the plans of the committee, its divisions, and its panels. With this organization established, funds made available for the program (a total of $800,000 to date) have been provisionally allocated as follows: 800, 000 Grants Divisional allocations were earmarked for the support of research. in the amount of $320,020 and fellowships in the amount of $50,225 have already been recommended to the American Cancer Society from these funds as follows: Chemistry. Physics Biology Clinical investigations... Fellowships- Total____. $81, 700 80, 350 69, 670 9, 925 78,375 50,225 370, 245 Research programs are well advanced in the process of development which will soon exhaust the remaining allocations and many desirable applications for fellowships and research grants will, of necessity, be refused or deferred for want of immediate additional funds. The central office budget supports not only the necessary office supplies, personnel, and the reproduction and distribution of minutes and reports, but also the salaries and travel expenses of professional assistants and all the expenses incidental to the meetings of the main committee, its divisions and panels and for the holding of conferences in specific fields of immediate importance to the committee's program. It is only appropriate to call attention here to the fact that, like the members of the committee on growth, panel members serve without compensation and are reimbursed only for actual expenses incurred incident to attendance at meetings and conferences and to other committee business. They have given unstintingly of their time, energy, enthusiasm, and wisdom. If the research program of the American Cancer Society contributes to the advance of human welfare, it will in great measure be due to the contribution of these unselfish individuals. Activities of the divisions and panels The four divisions-chemistry, physics, biology, and clinical investigationshave developed their own programs according to their special interests and competence. Integration of these programs and mutual exchange of information of common interest has been provided by joint meetings of panels and divisions and of panel and division chairmen; by the activities of the professional assistants to the divisions and through the medium of the central office. Division of chemistry The division of chemistry is composed of the panels of cytochemistry, nutrition, enzymes, proteins, synthesis and metabolism of steriods, and endocrine experimental physiology. To each of these panels were allocated $25,000 for the support of research_applications considered especially promising. Cooperation among panels has been intimate and in many instances, two or more panels have recommended contribution from their funds for the common support of a single grant application. Intimate liasion between the division of chemistry and the division of physics has also been assured by the fact that the panel on isotopes of the latter division acts for the former in the capacity of a panel on intermediary metabolism. The panel on cytochemistry has had an especially active interest in the exploration of new and the refinement of old techniques applicable to the study of minute quantities of biological material—the single cell and its component parts. It has defined its field of interest as that "concerned with the detection, localization, quantitative determination and characterization of chemical constituents of plant, animal and microbial cells and their immediate enviroment (tissues, tissue spaces, etc.) together with the role of such substances in the organization of the cell and in alterations associated with normal and pathological function." The panel has prepared and distributed to interested cytochemists and others a survey of cytochemistry which represents a summary of techniques-physical, chemical, and immunological-now available, with suggestions for their further development and exploitation, for the microanalysis of biologic material and biologic processes. This survey should prove of great interest and service to all investigators concerned with or contemplating studies on the chemical, morphological, and kinetic aspects of microbiological material. The panel has furthermore sponsored two regional conferences, one held in Atlantic City March 11, 1946, and another in St. Louis, March 27, 1946, on cytochemistry to which were invited the leading exponents of cytochemical methods to discuss ways and means in which the ideas and techniques presented may be extended to their maximum usefulness in the program of the committee on growth. The panel has recommended to the committee support in the amount to date of $26,500 of particular researches, solicited and unsolicited, which it feels will contribute materially to the extension of knowledge in the field of growth in general and of cancer in particular. And finally, the panel has explored and potentalities of research in cytochemistry in the United States and has estimated that this field alone could profitably utilize the sum of $150,000 in the year 1946-47 and $500,000 yearly thereafter to support promising research in existing laboratories as a means of forwarding the work of the committee and of the society. The panel on nutrition solicited applications for research grants from 20 prominent investigators in the field. Of the resultant 10 received, the panel recommended support of four. It has expressed a special interest in the effect on malignant growth of such factors as the oversupply of calories, of dietary fat, of vitamin B complex deficiencies, of sterole and amino acid intake. With the panel of cytochemistry, the panel is interested in exploring further the approach to the study of normal and malignant cells by the techniques of tissue culture, especially by indentification of essential components of the nutrient media. The panel on enzymes has felt that its most immediate contributions to the program can be made by fostering research directed toward the isolation and characterization of enzyme systems in both normal and malignant tissues and the exploration of the effects of hormones, nucleotides and nucleic acid on enzyme action and syntheses. The important of nucleotides in intracellular metabolic processes was especially recognized and a conference on the subject was tentatively recommended. The panel on proteins has concluded that it can contribute most usefully to the program of the committee on growth by performing the following service functions: (1) Encouraging the production and distribution of standardized proteins; (2) developing a monograph on the design and use of electrophoretic equipment; and (3) determining the physical constants of purified proteins. In conjunction with the latter, the panel proposes to support developmental research toward improved optical systems of electrophoretic apparatus and to call a conference of experts in this field. The panel on synthesis and metabolism of steroids proposes to act in a service capacity to other panels of the committee on growth and to investigators working under American Cancer Society grants by seeking means of obtaining rare or now unavailable steroids; by encouraging partial or full synthesis of new steroid compounds and by bringing to the attention of other investigators compounds which should be tested biologically. The panel has invited submission of applications for research grants by outstanding investigators in the field and is selecting the most promising of these to recommend for support. Under the auspices of this panel, in cooperation with the panels on clinical investigation in endocrinology and on experimental endocrine physiology, a conference on steroids, designed to take advantage of the presence in the United States of the distinguished Swiss steroid chemists, Profs. Leopold Ruzicka and Tadeus Reichstein, was held on March 18 and 19, 1946, at the National Research Council. To this conference came outstanding investigators in the field of the chemistry and physiology of the steroid compounds and a felicitous renewal of international scientific relations, interrupted by war, was established. The panel on experimental endocrine physiology has expressed the view that its most valuable contribution to the program would be to encourage in every way possible research into the fundamental endocrinological mechanisms underlying the phenomena of normal growth, especially: (1) The metabolism of hormones, particularly those of a steroid character; (2) the chemical changes in endocrine organs associated with their secretory activity; (3) the discovery of agents capable of inhibiting the secretory activity of endocrine glands; (4) the manner of control of the secretion of the hormones of the anterior pituitary; (5) the intermediary metabolism of mammary tissue, with particular reference to the synthesis of the characteristic components of milk and the manner in which this secretion is influenced by certain hormones; and (6) the nature of the growth-promoting action of hormones, with particular reference to the mode of action of the anterior pituitary growth hormone. The panel has also recommended a clearinghouse for the preparation, securing and distributing to qualified investigators of rare hormones and other biological materials be provided through the medium of the committee on growth. With the panels on clinical endocrinology and on steroids, the panel participated in sponsorship of a conference on steroids held March 18 and 19, 1946, at the National Research Council. Division of biology Within the division of biology are the panels on laboratory genetics, human genetics, mutations, cellular biology, milk factor, virus, and botany and to this division have been referred applications for grants falling within the general broad field of biological phenomena. A community of interest, however, exists with panels of other divisions, notably the panels on cytochemistry and on laboratory endocrine physiology. The panel on laboratory genetics has emphasized its concern with the interaction of genetic and environmental factors in the production of cancer, the correlation of genetic background with developmental differences and the identification of transmissable parental factors, such as the "milk factor," other than genetic. The panel has also stressed the importance of the maintenance of inbred strains, fundamental to genetic research, and has volunteered cooperation. with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in which a commission for the preservation of genetic stocks for plant and animal breeding has been proposed. Finally, the panel has offered to provide the services of a consultant geneticist for laboratories requesting advice in this field. The panel on human genetics, operating in a field in which investigations, to be productive, must largely be long-term in duration, has recommended support of a cooperative study of the factor of inheritance in cancer of the human breast to be jointly carried on at the University of Ohio and the University of Minnesota, and the services of a competent human geneticist were secured to devote full time to this study. The panel on mutations has emphasized a need, common to all the panels, for basic information concerning normal processes. It has pointed out that the approach offering greatest promise of ultimate value to cancer research is one directed toward a fundamental analysis of the phenomenon of gene mutation and that the possibilities of a direct study, at this time, of the relation of cancer to mutation are limited by the inadequacy of knowledge of the mechanism of the mutant process itself. This panel, therefore, has recommended especially support of investigations designed to explore first the characteristics of the fundamental process involved. A conference on mutations held in New York, January 26, 27, and 28, under the auspices of the panel, served to bring together leading workers in the field, to provide an exchange of the most recent information and to suggest profitable orientation of new research, which by its fundamental nature, necessarily will contribute, directly or indirectly, background for an understanding of the more specific problem of the mutant cancer cell. The panel on cellular biology has addressed itself the questions: Is cancer the result of exterior influences affecting the cell? Of influences coming from within the cell itself? Does the cancerous process involve primarily the cell nucleus and if so, what part of the nucleus, or does it involve primarily the cell substance and if so, what part of the cell substance? Again exploration of the mechanisms of normal cell division are an essential counterpart to exploration of the perverted mechanisms of the malignant cell. The panel has recommended support of studies involving both aspects of the problem. The panel on milk factor has outlined a program calculated to illuminate the character of the so-called "milk factor"-a virus-like agent in mice, transmissable through the milk, and influenced by both factors of heredity and harmonal environment-which produces cancer of the breast in animals susceptible to it. The panel has recommended support of research at the two laboratories where most of the work on this recently discovered cancer-producing virus has been carried out. The panel on virus has outlined a program of needed research designed to illuminate further not only the nature of specific viruses themselves but also of |