FASEB Monographs – serie

The Science of Life: Contributions of Biology to Human Welfare is the fIrst of what we anticipate will be a series of monographs resulting from activities of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. From time to time material drawn from symposia presented at the an­ nual meetings of the Societies, when considered suitable, will be published as separate FASEB Monographs. Usually, the material will have appeared in Federation Proceedings. Occasionally, other papers resulting from symposia, conferences, or special meetings sponsored by the Federation or one of its constituent societies will appear as a F ASEB monograph. In some instances, special articles on the same topic will be drawn together under one cover. Why should information which has already been printed and distributed as a part of the editorial content of a journal be republished as a monograph? Most of the ma­ terial to be included in this effort, particularly the symposia presented at the annual meetings of the six Federated Societies, will summarize the state of the art ex­ cellently. Such information will be of considerable value to students and teachers, especially for undergraduate honors courses or in graduate studies.

"e of the reasons for all the F ASEB Societies to meet yearly is the possibility O to interrelate recent progress in diverse areas of research. The F ASEB Conferences have been organized to promote such interdisciplinary approaches. They center around a basic theme with the aim of discussing active research, in­ cluding widely divergent approaches, towards a better understanding of a general biological phenomenon. Because of the mounting interest in the subject of aging and development, this has been chosen as the theme for this year's symposia. We have necessarily been limited in the number of topics that could be covered. In our choice we have attempted to' select those facets of the main subject which at this time are gen­ erating active research interest among our membership. We have included invited speakers from abroad, such as Drs. Goldstein, Liew and Miller from Canada and Drs. Wolpert, Holliday and Williamson from England. I am sorry to say that the two speakers that we had invited from Russia, Dr. Frolkis, and from Czechoslovakia, Dr. Sterzl, were unable to attend.

45 certainty about Federal policy concern­ the University of Alabama cardiac in­ ing the support of training contribute tensive care monitoring system on "ob­ to these difficulties. The problems are solete 1800 computers." Another re­ too broad and too complex to address sponded most efficaciously pointing out here. They are difficult for both aca­ that it is too bad that people lose sight of demia and government, and warrant the fact that a system on which a pro­ the active concern of the entire research gram is developed will always be able community. to do the job; change is not indicated Dr. Robert Macey introduced to the until the system ceases to be appropri­ ate. conference the exciting world of model development describing an application In another vein, the question opens to the area of membrane transport. The up a wide range of problems that can be discussion of his paper exposed the prob­ summarized as problems in the diffusion lern the modeler has of gaining ac­ of computer-based technology. At this ceptance of his particular approach, but juncture biomedical computing joins all mainly it provided a taste of the intellec­ the rest of biomedicine. The problems of tual excitement that modeling generates diffusion of advances in health research, among both doers and observers.