MAR 15 1971

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
NATIONAL, INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
BETHESDA, MARYLAND 20014

March 9, 1971

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

Professor of Genetics

Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford, California 94305

Dear Josh:

Thank you for your letter of March 2. I am fully in sympathy
with your concern which obviously is also mine. During fiscal
year 1970, NIGMS was able to fund approximately one in five
approved grant applications, and our final record for 1971 will
probably be only slightly better. Applications receiving priority
scores which in other years would certainly have resulted in fund-
ing had this year to be passed by. Clearly, this makes for much
unhappiness and frustration on the part of the applicant, and

also on the part of the philanthropoid like myself.

The roots of the problem, as I have now had brief time to analyze
them, are complex. Certainly in part they stem from our attempt

to provide relatively long-term assured support ranging from three
to five year commitments while operating out of an annual appropria-
tion. The consequences of this system, in my opinion, lead to
serious inequities which no one to my knowledge has been able to
circumvent.

Perhaps when next you are in the Washington area we could have lunch
together and I could collect your views and present to you my own
interpretations of what has been happening.

With kindest regards,

Sincerely yours,

| Long

DeWitt Stetten, Jr., M.D., Ph. D.
Director, National Institute of
General Medical Sciences

* I would enjoy that very much.

I will be in town for the NIMH Council
March 29-30; if you are free for Lunch
either day, I will try to keep the cor-
responding date open too.

2ttc > DLA

Sincerely,

Ko CY ~izr)

'NRLL ALS

Him OL