BACTERIAL PHYSIOLOGY UNIT
HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

25 SHATTUCK STREET
BOSTON. MASSACHUSETTS 02115
TELEPHONE: (617) 732~2022

  

Jan. 23, 1987

Dear Colleague,

The Home Secretary of the NAS has recently sent you a draft report of the ad
hoc Committee on the Structure of the Academy, and he invites comments. This

occasion offers the possibility for serious consideration of a problem that
may interest you.

I was Chairman of the Microbiology Section at the time of its dissolution, in
the last reorganization of the Academy, and I did not resist that change
because I agreed that functions and levels of organization provide a more
logical basis than taxonomic groups for dividing the biological disciplines.
But the inevitable result was that microbiologists are at a real disadvantage
as candidates, unless they fit into the Class on Medical Science, or unless
they use bacteria as model cells to study universal mechanisms in molecular or
cell biology. Each of you will have your own list, but to provide evidence
that there is a problem I might mention Nikaido, Alex Glazer, Woese, Losick.
These all do sophisticated molecular work, but on aspects of microbes that are
largely special to these organisms, and that are therefore not widely known to
most of the members of the sections on biochemistry or on cell biology.

I have written to Bryce Crawford suggesting a simple step that might improve
the situation: to change the name of the Section on Cellular and Developmental
Biology to the Section on Cellular, Developmental, and Microbial Biology.
Microbiologists would still, of course, not be well known to the majority of
the members of that section, but we would at least have a stronger claim for
an occasional nominee.

If you believe this suggestion has merit you might wish to write a brief
supporting letter to the Home Secretary. Or you may have another idea on how

to achieve more equitable status for microbiologists, say comparable to that
of botanists. ‘

Sincerely,

Cont Fou !

Bernard D. Davis

P.S. If you write please send a copy to Carroll Williams, who is a member
of the ad hoc committee. His address is: Harvard University, Biological
Laboratories, Room 342, 16 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.