on the staff of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is a graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology. Prior to his appointment as president of the new division, he was director of technology for the coiporation. Dr. Castor joined Carbide in 1953 as an engineer in Linde's research labora tory at Tonawanda, N.Y. He is an alumnus of Baylor University and had been manager of Linde's electronics department since March of this year.
Pure vs. applied debate tiresome Continuing discussion of the relative merits of pure and applied research gets "a little tiresome," and only "very ignorant people" believe that a sharp distinction can be made between the two. Thus did 1945 Nobel laure ate Ernst B. Chain tear into the image that research in industry, being ap plied, is "lower and less inspiring" than basic university research. Occasion for the remarks by the British scientist was the dedication of a new research complex by Merck Sharp & Dohme research laboratories, Rahway, N.J. Dr. Chain shared (with Sir Alexander Fleming and Sir Howard Florey) the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for discovering penicillin. The kind of snobbism existing be tween some persons engaged in basic (academic) research and others in applied (industrial) research—the socalled industrial-academic interfaceis beginning to worry a number of spokesmen for both communities. It was one of the major topics taken up recently by the American Chemical Society in its 1966 education confer ence (C&EN, May 30, page 4 6 ) . And last January, ACS President William J. Sparks listed the relationship between the two areas as a major problem. The danger in categorizing science as pure or applied (or as technology) lies in the possibility that technology will be held back. A nation's total scientific picture could then become patchy, as Sir Charles P. Snow has described the situation in Great Brit ain. Scientist/novelist Snow (now Lord Snow) is Joint Parliamentary Secretary in Britain's Ministry of Technology. He blames Britain's rel atively (to the U.S.'s) poor techno logical situation on "a principle of maximum purity"— most people want to do pure science if they have the choice, and pure science drives out applied. Other spokesmen for science who have in recent months publicly em phasized interdependence of the aca demic and industrial chemical research communities include former ACS President Carl S. Marvel and Du Pont 20 C&EN JUNE 6f 1966
Biochemist Chain Useful and useless
vice president Robert L. Hershey. Dr. Chain, a professor of biochem istry at London's Imperial College of Science and Technology, eschews the basic and applied classifications. He prefers to classify research as useful or useless. As examples of useful re sults stemming from academic and industrial laboratories, he cites: • Penicillin—it originated in an aca demic laboratory but, by its nature, could be no more "applied" than it is. • Histamine and acetylcholine— they originated in an industrial lab oratory, but their theoretical impor tance is immense. The British scientist admits that much of the work done in industrial laboratories is dull, uninspiring, and unoriginal. But in his opinion, the criticism can also be leveled (with equal justification) at quite a number of academic laboratories. He asks: "Does any piece of research, however useless, automatically carry the hall mark of scholarly wisdom just because it happened to be carried out in a uni versity laboratory?"
Isoprene unit found in sRNA An isoprene unit has been isolated for the first time from soluble ribonucleic acid (sRNA) by Dr. Ross H. Hall and his coworkers at Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo, N.Y. Iso prene (2-methylbutadiene) is the basic building block for terpenes, ster oids, and some vitamins. The Buf falo workers have identified the isoprene-containing nucleoside as N 6 Δ 2 ( isopentenyl ) adenosine and have confirmed the identification by syn thesis [/. Am. Chem. Soc, 88, 2614 (1966)]. The full significance of this research
isn't known, Dr. Hall admits, but it has these implications: • T h e nucleoside occurs in serine transfer RNA adjacent to what is prob ably the serine anticodon. The nu cleotide sequence of serine transfer RNA has been determined by Dr. H. G. Zachau and his coworkers at the University of Cologne, West Germany (C&EN, May 16, page 4 7 ) . • The nucleoside is a potent stimu lator of cell division and differentia tion in plants, being even more potent than "extremely active" kinetin, 6-furfurylaminopurine. Kinetin and its high biological activ ity were discovered at the University of Wisconsin in 1955 by Dr. C. O. Miller and his coworkers. Although kinetin is obtained from deoxyribonu cleic acid, kinetin is not known to be a natural product.
Cell stimulators Even more potent
The first well-established natural product with kinetin activity was de scribed recently by Dr. D. S. Letham of the fruit research division of the Department of Scientific and Indus trial Research in Auckland, New Zea land. He isolated 6-IV(4-hydroxy-3methylbut-2-enylamino) - 9-ribosylpurine from corn kernels. This com pound differs from the Roswell scien tists' nucleoside only by having a hydroxyl group on its isopentenyl side chain. The nucleoside found by the Ros well Park scientists is the first naturally occurring compound with kinetin ac tivity known to be an integral part of sRNA. Whether its presence in RNA is connected with its biological activ ity is still a question. Dr. Hall notes,
however, that during the past year other workers have suggested that the primary site of kinetin action is somehow connected with RNA. Working with Morris J. Robins, Lubomyr Stasiuk, and Roosevelt Thedford, Dr. Hall extracted sRNA from yeast using a method developed by Dr. Robert Holley at Cornell University. The Roswell Park group hydrolyzed the RNA enzymically and then isolated its nucleosides by partition chromatography. They got 15 mg. of the isoprenyl nucleoside from 60 grams of sRNA. The Roswell Park scientists proposed the structure for the nucleoside from spectral evidence (ultraviolet, infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, and mass). To prove it, they synthesized that compound by condensing isopentenylamine (the side chain) with the 6-chloropurine nucleoside. The UV and IR spectra of the synthetic and natural materials are identical. Dr. Hall estimates (from spectra) that his compound is present in 0.1 mole c/o of the total nucleotides from yeast sRNA. He and his coworkers have also isolated the nucleoside from calf liver sRNA, where it is present in about 0.05 mole %. Although the natural product as isolated has the proposed structure, it could exist in soluble RNA as the N 1 isomer, Dr. Hall says. Since N 1 -methyladenosine can rearrange to ZV6-methyladenosine in base, he concludes that his nucleoside might also rearrange during enzymic hydrolysis.
U.S. to obtain such financing; review periodically individual grants or contracts for foreign research. In a letter to the committee, Charles L. Schultze, Director of the Bureau of the Budget, says the bureau will write to all research-supporting agencies urging compliance with regulations limiting support of research abroad. However, he sees no need to issue a special directive as recommended by the committee. The reason is that BOB Circular A-58 establishes restrictions on all overseas activities of federal agencies, including support of research. The bureau sees no reason to issue another directive. According to Mr. Schultze, the agencies, as well as BOB examiners who review agency programs, fully understand that the restrictions of Circular A-58 apply to research programs. He believes that the agencies are in full
BOB on research dollar drain The Bureau of the Budget will go along part way with the recommendations of the House Subcommittee on Research and Technical Programs on how to limit the effect on the dollar drain of foreign research financed by the U.S. But the bureau balks at issuing directives and making detailed analyses as proposed by the committee. In a report issued last month (C&EN, May 9, page 3 9 ) , the committee claimed that loose administrative controls have caused an increase in spending for foreign research. (The committee says that five agencies have increased their spending for this kind of work from $24 million in fiscal 1962 to $27 million in fiscal 1966.) To reduce the dollar drain, the committee asked the Bureau of the Budget to do two things: issue a directive limiting foreign research spending to projects which are urgently needed by the U.S., which cannot be carried on in the U.S., or which will not be financed by foreign countries despite efforts by the
Budget director Schultze No special directive needed
compliance with the requirements of the circular. It is impossible, Mr. Schultze says, to comply with the committee's second recommendation—scrutiny of individual research projects—because BOB doesn't have the manpower. Decisions on individual projects can only be made effectively by agency officials; the bureau's function is to monitor the agency's system for ensuring compliance with policy. The Bureau of the Budget believes strongly that government spending affecting the balance of payments must be held to the minimum consistent with the national interest. "On balance, we believe that our efforts to apply this principle to scientific activities constitute a reasonable approach in terms of the relative magnitude of this problem," Mr. Schultze says.
PMA raps numbers in drug study The drug industry takes issue with what it labels "misleading and contrived" statistics in a study of drug purchase problems and policies which has just been put out by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's Welfare Administration. The H E W report is designed to help the states carry out the Medical Assistance Program (medicare) amendments to the Social Security Act. The report stresses the need of physicians for a simplified method of selecting the prescription drugs they prescribe. To make this point, the report claims that more than 15,000 prescription drugs are in common use today. Any one of them, it says, "may be sold under as many as 50 to 75 trade names." The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association challenges this assertion. The 15,000 drugs, PMA says, evidently include every known dosage form and strength provided for every known drug. "To state that 'any one of them may be sold under as many as 50 to 75 trade names' is fallacious," PMA insists. The association concedes that in a relatively few cases there may be this many producers or distributors of a drug. However, as it points out, only a handful of the companies distribute the product nationally. PMA also takes issue with the report's assertion that prescription drugs "account for the greatest increase in drug prices since 1939". The association notes that President Johnson earlier this year cited declining prescription drug prices as the chief factor in preventing a more rapid rise in overall medical care costs. The latest Consumer Price Index for prescription drugs stands at 90.7, down from 100 at the 1957-59 base period, while the Wholesale Price Index for prescription drugs is 95, compared with 100 in the 1961 base year. The H E W report makes a number of recommendations aimed at "enabling physicians to prescribe economically without sacrificing the quality or efficacy of the drugs their patients receive." But it stops short of endorsing the "prescription by generic name only" approach which the drug industry opposes. The report recommends that both state and federal welfare administrations hire consultants in drug economics. These consultants would work with medical and drug committees to prepare guidelines for physicians and druggists; identify high-cost drugs most frequently used in the Medical Assistance Program for which there are lower-cost counterparts; and devise ways to assess drug prescription practices of physicians. JUNE 6, 1966 C&EN
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