PRESENT CANCER RESEARCH ABROAD England.-The Chester Beatty Memorial Research Institute in London, under the leadership of Alexander Haddow, is in the forefront of basic studies on the process of carcinogenesis and has one of the most important programs in chemotherapy in the world. The Imperial Cancer Fund at Mill Hill has been a leader since the earliest days of virus-cancer research. France. The Pasteur Institute in Paris with A. Lacassagne and his coworkers has made numerous important contributions in the fields of radiology and the hormonal aspects of cancer. Oberling, Director of the Institute of Cancer Research at the University of Paris, has for many years been deeply interested in the relationship of viruses to cancer. Italy. There are Cancer Institutes in Milan, Rome, and Naples. The Milan Institute of Pharmacology is evolving as an important center in cancer chemotherapy research with Garratini as one of the principal investigators. Germany. Domagk, who received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of sulfanilamide, is now working on cancer chemotherapy and has introduced a number of new and interesting anticancer compounds. Warburg, another Nobel Prize winner who is often credited with initiating the modern, biochemical approach to cancer research, is continuing to make important contributions in the field of biochemistry. Holland.-Mühlbock is now chairman of the research commission of the International Union against Cancer. Basic research on carcinogenesis, biochemistry, and virology is being pursued at the Leeuwenhoek Institute in Amsterdam. Denmark. Clemmesen is maintaining one of the outstanding and most useful tumor registries in the world. His epidemiological studies of cancer have provided much valuable information on the extent of cancer in Denmark. Sweden. The Radiumhemmet in Stockholm is probably the most important single radiation treatment center in the world. Methods of treatment, long-term followup of patients, and fundamental studies on the effects of radiation have been represented among its contributions. Russia. The oldest cancer institute in the Soviet Union is in Leningrad and is headed by Serebrov. It specializes in clinical research and in studies of carcinogenesis. In the latter, Shabad has made noteworthy advances. In Moscow, the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy of Cancer, under Blokhin, is the center for experimental chemotherapy. The Russians have a number of able cancer investigators, and it is of interest that the next (eighth) International Cancer Congress is to be held in Moscow in 1962. Japan. The Japanese are continuing their significant research on carcinogenesis, genetics, and experimental cancer chemotherapy. Yoshida is perhaps the most influential research worker. India. The Lady Tata Institute in Bombay under Khanolkar is a study center for the relationships of environmental factors to human cancer-for example, oral cancer among betel-nut chewers. Khanolkar is the current president of the International Union Against Cancer. Better cooperation and more rapid transmission of information, as well as encouragement of the most talented research workers throughout the world, would be extremely useful to the United States in that such activities undoubtedly speed the day of the discovery of the causes and cure of cancer. AN OUTLINE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN THE MEDICAL SCIENCES INTRODUCTION Most of the ways used by medical scientists to exchange information about the results of their experimental work are conventional; in 300 years of scientific history there have been few innovations. William Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, ventured from England to Italy to study under Fabricius; international research fellowships and visiting professorships abound today. The published scientific journal replaced handwritten international correspondence in the 17th century. Today, while there are more scientific journals than ever before, the need to communicate is so great that scientists depend on personal correspondence, mimeographed advance issues, and preprints to supplement the journals. The first international scientific congress dates to 1851; scientists have been using this communication device for over 100 years. The techniques-foreign study, international congresses, cooperative working committees of scientists, international scientific journals and abstracting services-have not changed appreciably with the years. What has changed is the volume of communications. Increase in the number of researchers all over the world, of their studies, and the publications resulting from them have subjected the systems devised for communication to social and economic stresses. To accommodate this increase in communication volume, scientists and their private and governmental sponsors the world over have sharply increased the number of national and international scientific societies, working committees, symposia and meetings, national and international journals and abstract services. Concurrently, a need for more coordination has arisen, resulting in the creation of forms which are essentially new. At the scientific level, national scientific societies have formed multi-society amalgamations (American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute of the Biological Sciences, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), which hold joint meetings and establish inter-society coordinating committees. At the governmental level, the formation of scientific coordinating agencies is a phenomenon of the postwar years (Centre Nationale de la Récherche Scientifique in France, Consiglio Nazionale della Ricerche in Italy, National Science Foundation in the United States). Finally, at the international level, there are not only international unions of national scientific societies (The International Council of Scientific Unions, the International Union Against Cancer, the International Union of Biological Sciences), but also new supra-national agencies (WHO, UNESCO), which have both scientific and intergovernmental coordinating responsibilities. |