MACROMOLECULAR FABRICS AND PATTERNS ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION

B A C I< G R 0 U N D

PAUL WEISS Rockcfcllcr Institute for Hedical Research, Xew Pork City

The presentation this evening marks the opening event of a series of conferences that will extend through the summer of this year and is designated as the “Developmental Biology Confcrence Series 1956.” It is being held under the sponsor- ship of the Biolo,gy Council of the Xational Academy of Sciences and will bring a large number of American and foreign scientists together in interdisciplinary groupings for a discussion of some of the most fundamental problems in the field of development and growth, in which close and concerted cooperation between the biological and physical sciences is urgently necided. These two groups approach the phenomena of life from opposite directions. The biologist, who, by observational and grossly analytical procedures, strives to resolve the organism and its functions into smaller and smaller constituent units and their interactions, hopes eventually to link up with the physical scientist who tries to project his knowledge of the molecular events in nonliving systems upward into the domain of life processes. Their efforts are comparable to the building of a tunnel from both ends, in which the twain ill not meet unless each keeps his blind shaft oriented toward the other. To recheck this orientation and, if needed, to enhance its straightness, is one of the purposes of this conference series, with special regard to the problems of development and growth.

The biologist, working downward from his end, frequently does not drill deep enough to present the physical scientist

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with problems sufficiently concrete and explicit to be picked up from the other end for further analysis and resolution into molecular terms. Reciprocally, those coming from the molecular dimensions are frequently unfamiliar with, or unmindful of, the real nature and substance of the complex biological phenomena that they are aiming to approach, and hence get diverted into directions that lead away from, rather than toward, the common goal of a breakthrough. I n the meantime, both groups take comfort from the use of symbolic verbal substitutes for knowledge as bridges over what still is an enormous gap and, more often than not, accept these verbal bridges as if they were permanent fixtures of their conceptual structure rather than merely temporary expedients to be replaced by factual knowledge, the sooner the better.

I t is in the service of this common goal that I consider myself privileged in being allowed to present to you some recent observations that do seem to bring the knowledge of molecular events and that of their behavior in the organism one step closer.

The other conferences of the series that are to follow will carry this theme further with regard to problems such as cell differentiation, wound healing, hormone actions, cell division, and growth control. It is hoped that those participating in these exercises will return to their workbenches on the molecular, organismic, or intermediate levels, as the case mag be, with a more realistic outlook on what the other workshops in related fields are doing, hence with broader vision and new beacons for the self-direction of their own particular research.