It was generally agreed that the discussion of
Item 2 had been included with Item l.
RESEARCH
PLANNING
(continued)
Item 3.
ORGAN SYSTEMS - DR. CANTRIL asked how well this
program was being coordinated with work of the
Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program and
DR. DUNHAM told of work being done by Brookhaven in the study
of brains of animals which had been taken up to high altitudes.
Item 4.
PERFORMANCE AND LIFE SHORTENING - DR. DUNHAM explained that
the Division planned to intensify these studies, particularly
as far as life shortening studies and aging, and planned to
cooperate closely with the NIH,
DR. WARREN expressed the
opinion that the AEC had a responsibility to the Armed Forces
and should investigate the influence of acute doses of radiation
on the ability of men tc carry out assigned tasks.
DR. DUNHAM
spoke of the work that was done a number of years ago on dogs
on treadmills showing very little impairment in work capacity.
There was also work done at Austin, Texas and at Los Alamos.
DR. CANTRIL suggested that the best correlation with that type
of research could probably be obtained through nuclear weapons
tests, although this would be expensive.
DR. BONNER spoke of
a preliminary proposal from Convair to design a reactor that
would emit, a pulse of radiation essentially equivalent to that
from & weapon which would be useful in working out some of the
domimetric problems. This however, would cost about $700, 000.
DR. CANTRIL expressed the opinion that such an installation
would be useful for many other experiments besides biological.
DR. WESTERN told of the interest of the FCDA and the ODM in
determining under what radiation conditions people could be
brought back into radiation areas after an atomic explosion,
and in determining the length of time during which they could
staythere.
This would appear to have very important civil
defense implications.
DR. DUNHAM stated that he did not believe
any experiments had been directed at that problem and DR. WARREN
agreed that it was a very important one to explore.
Item 5.
COMBATTING DAMAGE - DR. CANTRIL spoke of Dr. Bruner's statement
that there was now skepticism over the possible long-range benefit to be derived from the humoral approach and inquired if the
work of Jacobson and that at Parke Davis were still going on.
DR. BRUNER stated that this work was still in progress, although
he had not covered it.
He also mentioned work at the Rand Laboratory and at Roswell Park. DR. DUNHAM spoke of plans to make
available a contract for $50,000 to Armour to protect the Government's patent rights.
DR. SHILLING spoke of the Werthesen
contract at Southwestern Research Institute in which they are
searching biochemically for an active principle from the serum
from pregnant bovine.
- 1D.