Analytical Instrumentation

   The progress of science has always depended upon the interplay of
concept and methodology.  At the present time we can foresee many unrealized
inspirations for analytical techniques at the level of single atoms, molecules,
cellular organelles.  Our concepts of structure in molecular biology far
outreach our capacity to determine structure by direct observation.- procedures
to establish the sequence of amino acids in proteins or of nucleotides in
nucleic acids would be worth many thousands of years of time of our most
inspi red scientists.  Similar needs apply to technological development in
material s, technology, in all the environmental sciences, and in space
research.

  At present the development work in the field of analytical instrumentation
(despite some proving exceptions) fall in an awkward gap. It needs the
management, skill and technical organization of industrial enterprise, but
lacks the evident profitability needed to motivate industrial commitment
on a large scale.  At the same time the scienti-sts who need such instruments
are too preoccupied with substantive problems and do not necessarily bring
the aptest qualifications to the task.

  It seems fair to say that the financial and managerial support which has
been available for the more applied aspects of technology through the
Department of Defense and for the basic sciences through the NIH and NSF
has been grossly inadequate in the field of instrumentation development that
lies between these extremes.  Yet the efficient use of scientific talent and
thereby the very progress of science must rely upon the adequacy of develop-
ments in this area.  k/e have an urgent need to bring together a fraction of
the cogent scientific insight from one pole and the financial and organizational
support from the other to meet this national need.  One const.ruct ive approach
that might help to dramatize our national interest in this direction would
be the establishment of one or a few central laboratories for the develop-.
ment and utilization of advanced instruments dedicated to analysis in the    .
range of single molecules to macromolecules.