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This notice sets forth three actions to be taken by the Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the May 7, 1986, NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules (51 FR 16958).

The laboratory of which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a lineal descendant was founded in 1887. During discussions of our plans for a year-long centennial observance with members of our House and Senate appropriations subcommittees, congressional members urged us to set two specific objectives: making NIH better known to the American people, and presenting the attractions of the many roles in health-related research to young people who have not yet formulated career plans. When I was invited to prepare an article for Science dealing with my personal experiences as director of NIH since April 1982, it seemed an opportunity to address the same objectives for the scientific community, for in my view there is much misinformation and far too much pessimism throughout the country about the state of biomedical research and its support.

The National Institutes of Health has given its highest priority to funding investigator-initiated projects and to minimizing year-to-year fluctuations in the number of new and competing awards. Adequate funding for centers, research contracts, intramural research, and training is also necessary for creation of the science base essential to sustaining the powerful momentum of recent progress. The important question for the future is whether the present system is sufficiently flexible and imaginative to keep pace with the contemporary revolution in science.

The origins of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are linked with European science. Few Americans had participated in the advances in bacteriology led by Koch and Pasteur when a laboratory from which the NIH eventually developed was established in New York in 1887, but its first director patterned this laboratory after ones already established in Germany, France, and England. The era of modern biomedical research in the United States began during World War II with the cooperation of government and nongovernment (mostly academic) research laboratories. Today, the philosophical foundation underlying all research-supporting programs of the NIH is that a close connection exists between improved medical care and research and that any expansion of medical facilities must be accompanied by an expansion of medical training and research. In addition, government grants should not interfere with the freedom and integrity of academic institutions and should allow scientists complete independence in determining the nature, scope, and methodology of their investigations. Discoveries in genetics in the 1950's and 1960's heralded an era of science in which it was necessary to address major questions with immediate relevance to human health. Impelled by pressure from the public, the scientific community, and the Congress, the NIH participates in formulating safety guidelines regarding potential applications of biotechnology. The annual increase in funds appropriated by Congress to the NIH attests to a high level of public commitment to the support of biomedical research and underlines the degree of accountability to which the NIH is subject.