A Proposal for A Special Conference
On the Biomedical Sciences

One of the major and crucial questions being discussed by
scholars working in the biomedical sciences is what does the
future promise? The extraordinary advances in the field during
the past century and the effects upon the lives of people
throughout the world - most dramatically in the industrialized
sector — have been so great that it is now of high interest to
speculate upon the future. It is the purpose of this proposal
to bring together several successfully imaginative people to
address this question and to discuss their ideas on the re-
sources needed to fulfill the potential advances of the next
several decades.

In order to accomplish this purpose a special type of
small conference is proposed. It is conceived as a meeting to
be both congenial and provocative, conducted in a pleasant set-—
ting, at which the most imaginative and fanciful motions are to
be ventured. There should be an air of intellectual adventure
for the participants, a quality only rarely attained in the
usual scientific conference. What we wish to have discussed
are the most challenging aspects of the biomedical sciences:
What are the next most important problems? What are the dis-
ciplines that are most central to their solution? Who will be
the scientists to work on their problems? What will it take to
produce such scientists?

The components that are most likely to determine whether
we are successful in creating such an exchange are the modera-~
tor, the panelists, the setting, the time allotted, and the
style of discussion. ‘

The Conference Moderator

The Conference Moderator must be an outstanding scien-
tist who has a particular talent for commentary and analysis
and whose understanding of recent scientific advances will make
it possible to catalyze a wide-ranging discussion. The person
proposed for this role is Dr. Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. Professor
of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley, who is also
the chief editor of Science. He has held the latter position
for the past year, and during that time has written extraordi-
narily perceptive and thoughtful essays. His editorial voice
has quickly become one of the most respected in world science.
He has also administered a number of design, layout, and con-
tent changes of the magazine so as to make it more accessible
and instructive to a wider audience. He is extremely enthusi-
astic about serving as conference moderator, and because of his
broad acquaintance throughout the scientific disciplines he has
helped suggest a panel of discussants.
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The Panelists

The panelists must be individuals who have already made
important contributions to their disciplines and who have a
certain reputation among their colleagues for thoughtful and
provocative reflection. The panelsists being proposed in-
clude the following: James Watson, Director of the Cold
Spring Harbour Laboratory; Walter Gilbert, Professor of Bio-
chemistry, Harvard; Sydney Brenner, Medical Research Council,
Cambridge, England; John Hopfield, Biophysicist, California
Institute of Technology; Hugh McDevitt, Department of Medi-
Cine, Stanford University, and Roy Vagelos, Biomedical Re-
search Executive, Merck Sharp & Dohme.

The Setting

The conference should take place in a locale that is
pleasant and is free from the intrusive distraction of daily
work. A modest-size hotel in a quiet retreat-like setting
would be ideal. Such a locale has not as yet been identi-
fied.

Duration

The conference should last over several hours —- pre-
ferably 2 or 3 sessions of two to three hours in length, with
appropriate recesses and breaks, to allow for a.full range of
discussion and exchange. It is suggested that the conference
could begin midday of one day, proceed through and around
dinner, and then reconvene the next morning with closure
scheduled for midday of day two. The setting should provide
facilities for recreation which, in addition, should enhance
a sense of ease necessary for the conference.

Proceedings:

The conference should be recorded and then profession-—
ally edited. The goal of the editing would be to develop a
monograph. Since the most imaginative ideas and speculations
of the participants are what we are desirous of evoking, the
detailed design of the monograph will have to await review of
the edited transcript. The type of exchange among the par-
ticipants that is envisioned is quite likely to contain an
important set of views that will merit publication.

Budget:

One of the important goals for this conference is to
have the full enthusiasm of all participants, and to create a
sense of special importance to this meeting. In order to in-
dicate such an intent, a very generous, above-average hono-
rarium should be awarded: $5,000 to all participants. All
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travel and meeting expenses also will be paid for the partic-—
ipants which should be approximately $1,000 per participant.
The cost of the transcribing and editorial function will be
approximately $15,000.

Thus the budget would appear as follows:

Honoraria (moderator + 6 panelists) $35,000
Travel, hotel 7,000
Transcribing 5,000
Editing 10,000

Total $57,000

Submitted by: Morton D. Bogdonoff, M.D.