WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
PLANNING COUNCIL FOR BIOLOGY

MEMBERS

Barry Commoner, Professor of Plant Physiology (Chairman)
Herman N. Eisen, Professor of Medicine

Thomas S. Hall, Professor of Zoology

Alfred M, Holtzer, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Florence Moog, Professor of Zoology

Robert E, Woodson, Jr., Professor of Botany

ex officio:

Henry N. Andrews, Jr., Chairman, Department of Botany
Howard Gest, Chairman, Committee on Molecular Biology
Viktor Hamburger, Chairman, Department of Zoology

Frits W. Went, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden

 
May 1962

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
PLANNING COUNCIL FOR BIOLOGY

Summary of General Aims

The Washington University Administration has asked
this Council to study the rapidly changing state of the
biological sciences in order to ascertain what demands these
changes place on the University's academic program. The
ultimate aim of this study is to recommend a plan for the
future development of the University's program in biology
and related sciences that will take full advantage of the
new opportunities created by recent developments and that
may help to resolve the issues resulting from the impact
of these developments on the present disciplines of
biology.

Recent years have witnessed accelerating advances
in our knowledge of the physical and chemical processes
that occur in living cells, and in systems derived from
them. These advances have been very wide in scope and
relate closely to the most fundamental properties of
living organisms, Consequently, the resultant conclusions
have an inescapable impact on all areas of biology.

This situation creates new problems and unprece-~
dented opportunities. The problems result from a series

of unresolved questions which arise from the reactions of

 
-“p-
the new observations on the older questions already
under purely biological study: Is it possible to reduce
the operation of processes unique to living organisms to
the properties of single substances, such as the nucleic
acids? What is the most effective way to study the
properties of life: by investigating the apparent
determinative roles of molecular processes, by way of
studies based exclusively on actual living systems, or
by a combination of the two? The future course of
education and research in biology depends on the answers
given to these questions.

The pace of recent advances has been so great that
there has at yet been little opportunity for the
academic community to sense their far-reaching effects
on teaching and research in biology.

Approaches differ quite sharply. One school of
thought holds that the new "molecular" fields of biology
will largely supplant classical biology as the cutting
edge of progress in the study of living things. Another
view is that biology proper must be concerned only with
the properties of actually living things, and avoid con-
fusion -- and probably interaction -- with the molecular
level. <A third view is that the molecular type of analysis
must be guided by and correlated with knowledge about
actually living systems, that the levels of organization

must be explicitiy considered in planning and interpreting

 
-3-
experiments, and that the unique attributes of actually
living systems must represent the final court of appeal.
One more view is that advances can be made simultaneously
at all leveis of organization, from the molecular to the
ecological, without preoccupation with their interaction.

Clearly the possible approaches suggest widely
diverging courses of action with respect to the future
development of the life sciences. Other influences on
the future course of biology are suggested by the changing
social demands on contemporary science.

The Council has decided to undertake a series of
discussions of the alternative views of these problems,
in order to work out its own analysis of the changing
status of biology, and from this analysis, a plan for the
future development of the biological sciences at Washington
University. To this end we are inviting some of the leading
thinkers in the field to visit the University, to present
their views on these and related problems to the faculty
and students, and to discuss the problem more informally

with the Council.