People on the Private Side
I set up the [National Cancer Institute’s biological response modification program beginning in 1980, and I left in February of 1984, and during that time I actually was trying to get more private involvement, to get a closer interface with the biotechnology industry, to get rotating scientists in from outside to try to open up and liberalize some of the viewpoints within the N.C.I. system....
They almost totally rejected it. It was a real closed shop in terms of thought processes. Many of the people have been there all their lives. They’ve spent very little time at the university and virtually none in the private sector. So they’re very focused on what they do at the N.I.H. or N.C.I., and I think they have a little trouble seeing the forest for the trees. They’re very suspicious that things done outside have somehow got a prurient ...
