Office Memorandum . Gnited States Senate

‘October 1, 1980

To : President Harvey L. Silbert; DATE:
Officers, Directors and Friends of FIBER

FROM : Alan Cranston

suBJECT: Developing a Human Protein Index

 

I enclose a copy of a remarkable letter I received in July from
Dr. Norman G. Anderson, Argonne National Laboratory, stating that
it is now possible to begin building a national data base for
mapping gene proteins, the most elemental units of human life.

A combination of new technologies allow researchers, for the first
time, to see and analyze the basic working parts of cells and genes.
‘This development, in Dr. Anderson's words, "Will allow us to rewrite
pathology and much of medicine at the molecular level."

FIBER and I responded to Dr. Anderson's letter swiftly, and some
remarkable developments have ensued.

On August 25 FIBER arranged a meeting in my office. Dr. Anderson
and a team of five scientists outlined the technical feasibility
and significance of the human protein index to leaders from the
Executive Branch and Congress, from science industry and major
philanthfopic organizations.

Here is what has happened since that meeting:

-- A task force, chaired by Dr. Anderson, has begun an accel-
erated planning phase to confirm the technical feasibility of the
proposal and to develop a coherent plan of action for national
leadership.

(Those who have agreed to serve on the task force are:

Dr. Edwin C. Whitehead, President of Technicon Corp.,;

Dr. Walsh McDermott, of the Robert Wood Johnson Found-
ation; Dr. Gerald Soffen, of NASA; Dr. William F. Raub,
National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert Stevenson,
President of American Type Culture Collection; Dr. Irving
Johnson, Vice President of Eli Lilly; and Dr. Lewis Thomas,
Chancellor of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.)

-~- NASA Administrator Robert Froesch met with Dr. Anderson for
two hours and has begun a search for agency personnel and equipment |
which might be applied to this project. Landsat resources and
computer image analysis capacities may be considered standby
resources for the protein index project. NASA is particularly
interested in potential applications in the Manned Space Flight Program.

- more ~-
Page Two Human Protein Index

~~ Dr. Vincent DeVita, Director of the National Cancer
Institute invited Dr. Anderson to present his proposal at NCI
and later wrote Anderson: "You are onto something extraordinarily
important and, it seems to me, it is unlikely to proceed expeditiously
without some help."

-- Both the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
and the National Academy of Sciences requested separate briefings
on the proposal. Dr. Anderson returned to Washington for that
purpose September 19,

-- The planning phase that is underway is estimated to cost
$50,000 in the next four months. FIBER is the official coordinating
group for planning funds. To date FIBER has received contributions
for this purpose from Eastman Kodak and Electro-Nucleonics, Inc.,
and pledges of contributions from Dupont and Eli Lilly.

“~The March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation plans to pay
$25,000 to the American Type Culture Collection (the largest frozen
cell bank in the nation) to prepare cell lines for analysis using
the 2-D electrophoretic mapping technique described by Anderson.
The objective is to identify a specific protein "thumbprint" of
genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, etc.

~~ There will be a special report on the human protein index,
mentioning FIBER's role in bringing this to the attention of science
and goverment leaders, in the January issue of Science "80 magazine.
The piece will be written by Albert Rosenfeld, a noted science writer.

_c~ A reporter for Science magazine attended the August 25 meeting
in my office and now has visited Anderson's laboratory in Chicago.
An article in Science can be anticipated in,the weeks to come.

-- Efforts are now underway to raise additional funds for the
Planning effort among individuals, private foundations and some
government agencies. -In the latter category, interest in eventual
applications has been expressed by officials of the U.S. Department
of Energy, the Center for Disease Control and the Environmental
Protection Agency.