schools was slightly under $200,000, with individual grants ranging from $3,600 to $12,000. Seven of the grantee schools have previously been supported by NSF grants. With the 17 grants made in fiscal year 1958, this program now has activated 33 grants at a like number of medical schools. Obviously, the funds granted did not satisfy the expressed need; there appears to be a real unsatisfied need for more support of this nature.

G. SUMMER RESEARCH AT BIOLOGICAL FIELD STATIONS

As in previous years, the program for summer research was continued in fiscal year 1958. Six requests were received during fiscal year 1958 from biological field stations for funds to provide summer research stipends for postdoctoral investigators, graduate students, and teachers from small colleges. The total amount of funds involved in all requests was somewhat under $100,000. Favorable action was taken on four of the six applications, and grants totaling $57,000 were made to the Highland Biological Station, the University of Michigan Biological Station (Douglas Lake), the Gulf Coast Laboratory (Ocean Springs, Miss.), and the Bermuda Biological Station. In all cases, grants were for the continuation of previously supported programs. One of the requests for the establishment of a new program was declined and the evaluation of the sixth proposal will not be completed until after the beginning of the new fiscal year.

The biological field station program currently involves summer research at the following stations in addition to those listed above: Lake Itasca Forestry and Biological Station, the Duke University Marine Station, the University of Oklahoma Biological Station (Lake Texoma), the Friday Harbor Laboratory (University of Washington), and the Mountain Lake Biological Station (University of Virginia). NSF-supported programs in these stations plus those for which new grants were made in fiscal year 1958 are expected to provide for approximately 125 stipends including those for postdoctoral workers, graduate students, teachers, and superior undergraduate biological students.

H. CONFERENCES AND SYMPOSIA IN SUPPORT OF SCIENCE

The Division underwrote several conferences and symposia during fiscal year 1958. These sessions can be grouped under two major categories: (1) those involving primarily American life scientists; and (2) those in which, in addition to American scientists, scientists from other countries participated. The second category will be indicated on pages 21-31. A brief description of meetings in category (1) which were supported is as follows:

(a) The Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole received a grant for a symposium on "Sulfur in Proteins," held in May of 1958.

(b) Partial support was given to Rutgers University for the support of a conference on "Biochemical and Serological Characterization of Protein," held in January of 1958. This was one of a series of annual conferences held at Rutgers on some phase of protein metabolism. The meeting was attended by serologists, immunochemists, and systematists.

(c) The Biophysical Society received support for two symposia on "The Structure and Function of Microsomal Particles" and on "The Nature of Muscle Protein," both of which were held in Cambridge, Mass., in February of 1958.

(d) The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, organized and held a conference of administrators of 18 natural history

museums.

(e) The Division partially supported a symposium on "Basic Concepts and Techniques in Systematics," held in October 1957, at the Missouri Botanical Garden. A second grant to the garden was also made to permit a similar meeting in October of 1958 on the subject of "Taxonomic Consequences of Man's Activities." A particularly valuable outcome of the meetings at the garden is the participation by graduate students as well as established scientists and the coverage of both plant and animal taxonomic problems.

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Part 5

SUPPORT OF INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES IN BIOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL SCIENCES AREAS

The Biological and Medical Sciences Division is involved in several broad areas of support which relate to international activities in science. The first of these is research support per se; the second involves the support of international travel; the third covers the subvention of conferences, symposia, and scientific congresses; and lastly, there is a group of miscellaneous activities.

A. SUPPORT OF RESEARCH

1. SUPPORT OF U.S. SCIENTISTS WORKING ABROAD

The most frequent form of Foundation research support relating to international activities in the biological and medical sciences is the support of U.S. scientists who, for one reason or another, wish to do research at a foreign institution. The reasons for doing research in a foreign laboratory or in a foreign geographic area are many, including such things as the character of the research program being carried out in a given laboratory, or an opportunity to do research while on fellowship status at a foreign institution, or the necessity for collecting forays into other areas than the United States and its Territories if one is interested in certain kinds of biological materials which are available only in non-U.S. geographic areas. We shall attempt to give examples to illustrate the variety of circumstances which lead to the support of American investigations in foreign institutions or in foreign geographic areas.

The Foundation, for example, supported the work of Dr. A. U. Dahl of the University of Minnesota, a leading scientist on problems of the ultrafine structure of pollen grains. Dr. Dahl spent a year doing research with Dr. J. Iversew, of the Pollen Laboratory, Geological Survey Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark. Because of the high quality of work in electron microscopy being done in this laboratory, Dr. Dahl not only profited in his own research work from this joint effort, but also improved his skill in electron microscopy.

For work relating to the nature of blood flow, blood coagulation, and blood transfusion, the Foundation supported the work of Dr. Alfred L. Copley at three foreign institutions. These three institutions were: Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine and the International Children's Centre in Paris and Charing Cross Hospital of the University of London. Dr. Copley worked for approximately 3 years at these institutions in company with European scientists interested in the blood flow problem. As well as performing research, he participated in many European conferences on this subject matter. The Foundation also has supported the research of Dr. David Shemin of Columbia University at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Dr.

Shemin is working on the problem of biogenesis and functions of certain cellular constituents. In performing this research, it was Dr. Shemin's wish to collaborate with Dr. Andre E. Lwoff, a world authority in the area of research being performed.

A similar grant has been made for the support of the work of Dr. George Kalnitsky of the State University of Iowa. Dr. Kalnitsky is interested in research on mechanism of enzyme action, and during the period of a traveling fellowship from the University of Iowa wished to do collaborative research at Oxford University with Dr. H. A. Krebs, a leading authority in enzyme biochemistry.

In another area of biological sciences, the Foundation supported for a period of 2 years the research of Dr. A. H. Doermann of the University of Rochester at the University of Cologne for work on the genetics of bacterial viruses. Initially, Dr. Doermann was invited to give a series of lectures at the University of Cologne, and Foundation support allowed Dr. Doermann to remain at Cologne for an extended period of time to do collaborative research with Dr. Carsten Bresch at the University of Cologne. The grant also enabled Dr. Doermann to visit other outstanding European laboratories where research on microbial genetics is being pursued.

As an example of field studies which require work to be done on an international basis, the Foundation has supported the research of Dr. A. R. Mead of the University of Arizona who is interested in the problem of the distribution and population characteristics of the "giant African snail." Certain populations of this largest and most destructive snail have undergone great reductions in the past few years in restricted areas of the world. The study supported by the Foundation was an effort to determine factors (physiological, parasitological, and predatory) which are responsible for the decline of this animal in Ceylon. In addition to Foundation support, the Rubber Research Scheme in Ceylon and the Planter's Association also provided assistance and encouragement for the research.

The utilization of equipment which is unique in a given laboratory is illustrated by a grant to Drs. Elizabeth and Bryan Boden of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography which allowed them to utilize the bathyscope at the Museum of Oceanography in Monaco. The use of this equipment permitted Dr. Boden to pursue a recent finding that bioluminescence is a major source of light at various depths in the sea. The funds provided in the grant allowed for an international effort which involved American scientists, French scientists, and British scientists to work at the Monaco Laboratory simultaneously on a variety of problems, each of which required the unique equipment available there.

The above are selected instances of support given to American scientists either for independent or collaborative work in laboratories and institutions outside the United States. Other representative grants made by the Foundation for similar purposes over the last 3 fiscal years are shown in table 2.