DaRalT “ C3)

October 16, 1978

Mr. Haggerty, Mr. Rockefeller, colleagues, neighbors,
and friends. First of all my welcome to you to this ex-
hilarating occasion and especially my thanks to those of
you who have come a long way from all parts of the world.
Some of you have traversed the even greater distance
across 68th Street or York Avenue in response to a new
mood of fellowship and cooperation that binds our prospec-
tive institutions. There are good reasons to ask why so
many people will go to such trouble to arrange an event
of this kind. as—tbam_sure—that no one who has ever been
involved in arrangements for more than a dozen people will
underestimate all of the complexities, troubles and hard
decisions that have to be made in order to bring it about.
I am by no means the only one who should attempt to answer
that question but from my own perspective E-ean—see-tts ond

of a chemanel Life Tis 15
value jin giving pause both to a new incumbent and ma.

venerable institution to a necessary process of self-ex-

amination.
te

Now I am reminded Rew James B. Conant wrote in his
autobiography describing the beginning of his long
service as the President of Harvard University-having
turned there from a distinguished career as a laboratory
organic chemist. How grateful he was, in retrospect,

Wes thadValeuth, urea in his plan

that he farted to publish his initial thoughts on enter-

—_— ewe

ing, dnte—that rote "that would have hung around my neck
during the next 20 years like the albatross of the ancient
mariner".

But I am going to disregard his implicit advice /as

other dys ~
indeed I have tried to exhibit mm hack-of qualifications

for an administrative role im-other—-respeets by trying to
Coie¥\nne to behave as a Cobnatry Sereisl. nthe LH whe 81s imprEatto

bring gy speculative ideas to the surface where others as

well as myself can have a better opportunity to criticize  @ven
amgi sometimes discard them. My remarks are then in no

respect settled truths but reflect my own quandries and

dilemmas in trying to understand the larger aspects of

the responsibilities which have just been laid upon my
-3-
shoulders. (ana let me hasten to reassure you that an
inconvenient and small accident rather than those re-
sponsibilities accounts for the momentary lameness of

my right extremity at this particular time.)

The fact is that institutions can hardly evade the
most critical examination in the present climate of
skepticism and inquiry about our entire social fabric.

If we do not a a sometimes reform ourselves others
will do so with even less information and insight. This
is then an apt moment to ask, as we should be prepared to

e
ask at any moment, just what would be lost if we disappeared
from the face of the earth?

Perhaps there is even some special advantage in tack-
ling these issues before the incumbent is encumbered by
his day to day obligations and before he is captured by
his affiliation with the traditions and setting of an in-

stitution of such manifest beauty as to prejudice that

essential self-examination. Still before proceeding there
are two elements of our setting worth commenting about.
First, this is the season of the equinox with its
unpredictable alterations of climate and mood. In the
traditions of my co-religionists the harvest tabernacle
has long been a symbolic reminder of the fraility of our
human constructions of our reliance on a benign providence
for the recurrence of the nourishing ¥eigns indispensible
for the cycle of our daily business. However carefully
mates orer acobeyece
we plangwe must still rely on faith, on community support
for the value of our work. The most meticulous academic
Planning will fall into dust if khrogaense fail. In the
currency of modern industrial society, a one percent flucua-
tion in the rate of inflation over the period of time is
the margin between fiscal stability and disciplined growth
on the one hand aaa slide into insolvency on the

other. We may congratulate ourselves in being far closer

to equilibrium today than most other private academic insti-
tutions. With hard work and just moderate good luck we
have a planning framework for vigorous survival with the
most painful and demoralizing adjustments already behind
us, the painful task of my predecessor Dr. Fred Seitz.
But it would take a Syntype hybris fo be complacent
about the possibility of still other unforeseeable storms -
and it is important that we remind ourselves ene
how vulnerable we are to the smallest flucuation in public
understanding of the integrity and necessity of our mission.
The task we face is both a material one of matching our
plans and operations to a realistic model of the resources
available ,and the spiritual one of sustaining our own con-
fidence in the importance of our work and in shapinog-and-
communicating vt to the Gest interests of the human pur-
poses we ultimately serve.

Another setting of my remarks is framed by the fact

that most of what I would want to say has already been
captured by the 75th Anniversary celebration of the
Rockefeller University held just two years ago. Those
accounts of the transition from the Rockefeller Institute
of Medical Research to The Rockefeller University precisely
describe just what brought me to this place: not to invoke

radical changes but to conserve the most vital traditions

 

of biomedical research to be found anywhere today.

It has become almost tedious to use this indicator
but of course we do take some pride that still another
of our research alumni, Dr. Daniel Nathans was honored with
the Nobel Prize Award announced just last week. Dr. Nathans
graduated from his clinical residency into laboratory re-
search here under the tutelage of Professor Fritz Lipmann
from 1959 to 1962 and I am sure that we all join in collegial
congratulations to him. We.cannot be doing everything wrong |
with a consistent record of recognition represented by the
placement of Rockefeller University graduates in leadership
roles in medical research and education throughout the

country.
The fundamental agenda of the Rockefeller University
is indeed basic biomedical research of substantial breadth
in the tradition of the Institute.

Medical research today -tige must have a much broader
perspective than that of the biochemical laboratory. We
are fortunate in a faculty of world-recognized excellence
in the behavioral sciences as well as experimental biology
and pathology. And we can be informed by the still dif-
ferent insights of physics and mathematics.

Now, scientific research is one of the most enthrall-
ing games that can occupy the human mind, and those of us
who can dedicate our lifework to it are privileged indeed.
But the private excitement of the chase for new discovery
should not obscure the public Stakes of the enterprise.
What we learn today about the structure of DNA and of cells
and how these are knit together in a functioning organism
is indispensable tomorrow for what is indeed a war against

pain, disease and death. There is no fundamental reason
why we cannot learn to prevent all of the major destroyers
of long and happy lives that loom over every one of us
today: heart disease, cancer, mental illness, birth
defects, even untimely ageing. These tragic events are
not fundamental laws of matter and energy -- they are
Side effects of a natural evolutionary process that is
less incomplete than it is indifferent to the anguish of
the human consciousness as we face our own mortality.
Advances against these threats will not come cheaply.
The careers of thousands of investigators are committed to
them, and they in turn require a level of material support
that must be justified in competition with many short-run
social needs. The ground rules for the ethical involvement
of human subjects in medical research are under constant
scrutiny and revision. Above all, the lay citizen needs
adequate information to be able to confront his own soul
about the choices ahead -- whether to be a passive victim

of natural disease and disability, or to seize the chance

¢
to use new knowledge for a rational frame of healthy

life. There has been much, sometimes hysterical, con-

cern about the risks of medical research, and the need

for public involvement. In my view, the most cogent

risk is the very success of the basic programs of re-

—_—
ee
=

 

search, and the social consequences of drastic reductions,

in death and illness from our major afflictions, which I
have no doubt will be surmounted. No one will cast a
vote against 'living'; but we have certainly not begun
to face up to the social problems of the prolongation of
life, even those that have already been achieved in this
century.

The primary responsibility that I face in my new
office is to help sustain the traditions of excellence
in science for which the Rockefeller University has been
justly famous for many decades. The creative intellect
of its carefully selected and gifted individual members

is the bedrock of accomplishment of any institution, and
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they must be furnished an environment and resources with

which to exercise their gifts. The substantial scope but

simple structure and coherent goals of this University

offer a unique challenge to scientific leadership. Let

me say at once that this is precisely what has drawn me,
wl Sey Mailand

here , Wi trusting reliance on the judgements of

my electors that I might learn enough to be able to meet

our 60 Ine

that challenge. Beyond the list of laboratories is

an overarching opportunity to bring different specialties

of knowledge and styles of critical thinking together both

to enhance scientific excel tence and to confront all of

these with the practical challenges of human disease. The

remarkable aspects of The Rockefeller University: its

appropriate size, traditions, setting, and range of studies

on one campus -- encompassing molecular biology, the be-

havioral science and the clinic -- all offer an unparalleled

opportunity for intellectual adventure and human service.
-ll-

This conception of collegial effort is deeply embedded
in the motivations both of our original founder and of the
many individuals, corporations, and foundations that have
continued to support the programs of The Rockefeller Univer-
sity. At its inception the federal support of biomedical
research mediated primarily through the National Institutes
of Health was implemented according to similar ideals. Such
support is absolutely indispensable and in fact government
grants account for slightly more than 50% of the annual
operating budget of this University at the present time.

It is predictable but lamentable that this level of federal
involvement inevitably comes to be associated with an
egregious degree of centralized management. Most of this
funding is directed to the "purchase" of specified research
results packaged in projects as if major discovery could be
marketed according such specifications. The project grant
system, as admirably as it has supported major innovations

and discoveries in the past is now administered in ways that
/
_ 12 -
threaten to disintegrate institutions to discourage
the confluence of creative ideas and even to introduce
serious obstacles into the opportunistic collaboration
of basic scientists with a variety of clinical applica-
tions. One of the most important functions of a privately
endowed institution of this kind is to render an effective
counter-example to the services-rendered approach to the
Vera cath tarts
support of research in favor or tne idehtification of
creative individuals and of collegial frameworks for
reaching the same social ends.
Weallevistien of nm
The need for collegiality and mternal obstacles to
its realization also extend to the relationship between
institutions.
Happily situated at the center of an extraordinary
complex of medical institutions -- being literally now in
the shadow of New York and Memorial Hospitals, and immediate

neighbors to Cornell Medical College and the Sloan-Kettering

Research Institute -- we have a remarkable opportunity to
- 13-
match our own intellectual style and skills and dedication
to the most basic science, with the diverse problems and
resources of our neighbors. They are deeply preoccupied
with medical education and the care of patients on a
large scale . These are social values of undeniable
worth /but distinct from what we can offer in tracing the
underlying causes of disease. We are correspondingly
under an obligation to focus on preventive applications :
but I fear it will be quite a while before the hospitals
are out of business. We must work together to meet ougl
categorical social responsibilities and I am delighted
that even in the few weeks of my tenure a number of measures
for realistic partnership have been started with the equally
enthusiastic concurrence of our neighbors.

In closing, permit me to recall having been educated

myself in New York, having had the privilege of access to

Stuyvesant High School and Columbia University and Medical
-~ 14 -

School, as well as to the City's Public Library System
and many other institutions that foster intellectual de-
velopment. Having been away for many years, and now re-
turned, I may feel especially keenly how rich are these
network of sources. We are really all students ina
metropolitan super-university, unequalled in opportunity
anywhere in the world. I will certainly be doing all I
can to enjoy this fare for myself and my colleagues, and
to seek ways in which our own specialized institution can
most efficiently cooperate with others truly "pro bono
humani generis", for the benefit of mankind. I am indeed
grateful to the Board of Trustees, to my colleagues, and
to the community of our supporters and well wishers for

having created such an opportunity.