SCIENCE CONGRESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27276, 30 December 1949, Page 4

SCIENCE CONGRESS

DELEGATES’ ABSENCE IRON CURTAIN AGAIN DISTURBING CLEAVAGE A most disturbing feature of the first international conference of biochemists held at Cambridge University in August of this year was the complete absence of delegates from behind the Iron Curtain—there were no Russians, Poles or Czechs, and no Germans or Austrians, said Dr N. L. Edson, professor of biochemistry at the Otago Medical School, in an interview with the Daily Times yesterday after his return from visits to Britain and the United States. He left Dunedin in June. Professor Edson said that, to his knowledge, it Was the first time that such a cleavage had occurred in an international science congress. Apart from the absentees —who had been invited and had sent apologies—the con-

gress was representative of most countries and was attended by 1700 delegates. Russians had attended the physiological congress in 1948. The congress was an historical one, the professor said, and was held at Cambridge in memory of the late Sir Frederick Hopkins who had been professor of biochemistry there. The conference would be permanent and the next one would be held in Paris in 1952. While in Britain, he had made a study of isotopic tracers at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. Professor Edson went on. There he saw one of the finest laboratories in the world. The work on isotopic tracers was being stepped up and certain supplies would be available for research work in New Zealand. “This is a most important development concerning our research work,” he said, " for these supplies, which formerly Were available only from the Atomic Energy Commission of the United States, can now be obtained in certain, quantities from Britain and so from the sterling area.” Professor Edson had a word of advice to give young New Zealanders who were going to Great Britain on scholarships from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. If they intended to do research in bordering subjects such as biochemistry, physiology or microbiology, they would be well advised to go prepared, he said. Usually they took little or no tuition before leaving New Zealand, and so they wasted valuable time on arrival in Britain. The laboratories were crowded enough already. They would be better advised to get their Ph.D. in New Zealand and have publications to their credit. After leaving Britain, Professor Edson spent 10 active weeks in the United States. He met two-thirds of the top-ranking biochemists in the American universities and was impressed with the vitality and vigour of the American biochemist. From visits to most biochemistry laboratories he saw that the application of isotopic tracer technique was almost universal. “My most vivid impression was the extreme vigour of the. research workers in America,” he said. “They apply concerted teamwork and have fine equipment, with the ability to solve problems very much faster than in places where the equipment is not available. These research workers are burning themselves out, however, because competition is so keen. Dollar grants for research work are not handed out as easily as we seem to think.”

Professor Edson concluded by saying that academic Americans—the ones with whom he came into contact most frequently—were interested in New Zealand. They were interested in every way and not only in the political experiments which had been carried out here. Americans in other walks of life also took an interest in this country.