DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS
Schd a/ Mdiciac

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

  MEDICAL, CENTER
PALO ALTO, CALJFORNIA

December 21 , 1961

COPY

Dr. Detlev Bronk
President
National Academy of Sciences
2101 Constitution Avenue
Washington 25, D.C.

Dear Dr. Bronk:

    My ccl leagues, whose names are appended, and I met here under the
chairmanship of Dr. C/i 11 iam Steere on December 12, as the Long-Range
Planning Council of the American institute for Biological Sciences. We
were charged by the governing of the Council to discuss some of the long-
range problems of biology as a-unified science,  We are preparing a
number of recommendations to the governing board of the AIBS indicating
scme measures that they might take towards maintaining the vigor of our
science.

Meanwhile, on our own initiative, we feel compelled to point out

I I
VI/  the trenchant role that the National Academy of Sciences should be playing
     in this kind of planning and in implementing widely felt needs.  L/e feel,

however , that the present organization of the biological sciences within
the Academy along taxonomic lines can only frustrate the application of
its resources and talents to contemporary problems; it sets a poor example
to university faculties in establishing the academfc organization of bio-
logical work:  it discourages the election to the Academy of the most
brilliant and productive scientists precisely because their work is of such
fundamental character that it cuts across taxonomic divisions.

   A number of proposals have been made in the past to reorganize
biology within the Academy, and we are aware that this problem has had your
continuing consideration.  We wish now to stress its urgency if the Academy
is to maintain a useful function of leadership in biology. The detailed
form of such a reorganization should be left to the leadership of the
Academy itself; its sections did correspond more or less precisely to the
functional organization established by the National Scienc& Foundation, it
could at least insure a worthwhile concentration of effort in meeting con-
temporary needs.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

cc:  Dr. Daymon Boynton        Dr. C.L. Prosser
  D`r. George L. Clarke      Dr. O.H. Schmitt
  Dr. LaMont C. Cole       Dr. W.C. Steere
   Dr. H.J. Muller          Dr. K.V. Thimann