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THE INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCH

tT7TOL BURHOLME AVENUE
FOX CHASE-PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 10111

(215) 342-1000-CABLE ADDRESS: CANSEARCH

ALFRED G. KNUDSON, JR., M.D., PH. D.
DIRECTOR
215-728-2490

March 31, 1980

" Dr. William D. Terry
Acting Associate Director
Cancer Centers Program
National Cancer Institute
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda Maryland 20014

Dear Bill:

As I noted on the telephone it was impossible for us to respond to your
request within two weeks. Now we have accomplished this and enclose our re-
sponse.

I would like to reiterate some of my general comments on the matter of
guidelines. It is understandably difficult not to refer to our own position,
because the proposed guidelines would greatly weaken, even cripple, our
Center, contrary to the Congressional mandate that support grants should
strengthen Cancer Centers, as indeed ours has done. We like to think that
our previous contributions to cancer research are such that weakening our
Center constitutes a weakening of the National Cancer Program too. We are
proud of the fact that those scientists, 36 in number, supported by our core
grant include five members of the National Academy of Sciences. We are also

proud of the priority score of 152 that the last, renewal of our support grant
received.

As you will see from the enclosed report our total grant would now be
limited by formula to $967,630 instead of its present $2,713,968. Limitation
of the amount applied for has never been a feature of supporting grants, al- — .
though we have always accepted the idea that the amount awarded might be
limited. If we were to expend the entire amount of allowable funds under the
new guidelines on shared resources and services, we could maintain our present
level of support for that category, leaving nothing for investigators, admin-
istration, or development.

That would leave us with the problem of finding a new source for per-
sonnel. Of course, we would ask each investigator to request 100 per cent of
his or her salary on individual research grants currently awarded from NIH,
NSF, or ACS. Since about 90 per cent of our grant requests are actually
funded, I suspect we would be successful. But such a shift would cause a sub-
Stantial problem with morale. The supporting grant has acted for us in much
the same way that state or large. endowment funds do for other institutions,

- but with no compromise of standards; in fact, the salaries of investigators

THE FOX CHASE CANCER CENTER
Dr. William D. Terry ~2- March 31, 1980

are only awarded to those who hold peer-reviewed grants. The recruitment

of new young investigators would surely be affected. There would also be a
strongly negative effect upon our attempts to develop-new programs, especial-
ly at that delicate interface between basic and clinical research. In

' viewing the chaos created for us, will subsequent reviewers believe that the
new guidelines were designed to strengthen institutions that are striving to
contribute to the conquest of cancer?

This crippling of our core support arises because of two key points in
the new guidelines. The first has to do with the fact that the maximum amount
of a supporting grant is now determined by a formula, and that the formula is
geared to NCI grants and contracts. As you know some of the most promising
cancer research at ICR, including that of Beatrice Mintz and Robert Perry, is
supported by other agencies. I hope that you and Dr. DeVita feel, as I do,
that it is from such directions that the most far-reaching new developments
will come, as they have already done in the case of Baruch Blumberg, our Nobel
Laureate whose early research was supported by other Institutes.

‘The second has to do with the limit on salaries of investigators. This
is a more academic issue in view of the paralyzing effect of the first limita-
tion. Salary support has been the main part of our supporting grant for 18
years. We have been conservative in this matter and strong proponents of the
idea that investigators without peer-reviewed grants should not be so
supported. On the other hand, we do not request support for administration
and new research projects. Other Centers have other needs, but these for the
most part are not compromised by the new guidelines. It seems to us therefore
that the changes are selectively discriminating against those Centers that
have been helped by support of the mainstays of the Cancer Program, the prin-
cipal investigators themselves.

We understand that there may be a limitation on funds available for
supporting grants. If it develops that approved grants total $75 million and

the funds available are $60 million, a 20 per cent reduction for all grants
would be rational. It would obviously cause our institution some difficulty,

but nothing like the 64 per cent reduction that the new guidelines would im-
post upon us.

We are not asking for favored treatment. We are believers in the peer-review
process and are in fact eager to have Centers so reviewed rather than have them
squeezed into a formula concerned more with homogeneity than quality.

Sincerely yours,

AC

Alfred G. Knudson, Jr.
Director

AGK: in
enclosure