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ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION HEALm, EDUCATXON, AND WELFARE National Institutes of Health Public Health Service FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AEC AND N C I LAUNCH CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAM AT OAK RIDGE The National-Cancer-Institute and t h e Atomic Energy Commission will begin a joint research project to investigate the roles of radiation,viruses, and chemicals a s causes of cancer. The research will be done at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) i n Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The collaborative investigation takes advantage of the facilities of the Atomic Energy Commission and its previous studies of the effects of radiation on various biological materials as well as of the special research competencies and previous findings of the National Cancer Institute. "The incidence of cancer, especially lung cancer, and thein - crease in number and amount of potentially cancer-causing agents t o which man i s being exposed, emphasize the importance of these studies, " said Dr. Luther L. Terry, Surgeon General of the Public of determining the respective roles of various known o r suspected causes of cancer as studied under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. This new research project will supplement and support the research and control efforts of several other Public Health Service programs which are directly concerned with the growing proSlem of environmental hazards t o man. I' "They will approach the very difficult problem The Pu5lic Health Service ' s National Cancer Institute and the Atomic Energy Commission will work together in planning the research to be undertaken. The Commission will provide the necessary facilities for this activity and in addition will contin ue its own research program a t ORNL on the effects of radiation on living organisms. It is anticipated that the joint program will operate initially at an annual level of $500,000 which will be financed by the Institute, The National Cancer Institute
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will assign one or two key employees t c work on the project with Oak Xidge laboratory personnel. The joint program will include a lung cancer study i n which animals will be exposed to some of the types of chemicals, radia - tion, and viruses to which man is constantly exposed. Radiation, for example, will be given both in doses large enough t o produce cancer and i n smaller doses corresponding tothe 1o.w levels normally present in the human environment. The chemicals t o be used will include many that have been shown to cause cancer in various animal species -- with emphasis on the kinds of substances present in, for example, automobile exhausts and certain industrial wastes -- as well as others that are not known t o cause cancer, The chemicals will be released into the chambers as aerosols that the animals will inhale. One of the studies will seek information which may help ex gla in whether the increased incidence of cancer i n middleaged and elderly people results from a greater sensitivity of aged tissues to cancer-causing agents acting over relatively brief periods of time or from the cumulative effects of lifelong exposure t o such agents, Three other studies are being considered for the program. One i s an investigation of the cancer-producing effects of small amounts of chemicals and low doses of radiation given to animals in various sequences to simulate as far as possible with laboratory animals the conditions under which man is ordinarily exposed t o such factors. Another i s an investigation of the biochemical mechanisms by which chemicals and radiation produce cancer and, in parti cula of. the role of substances produced within living tissues as a result of exposure to radiation. The third,also an effort to increase understanding of the mechanisms by which cancer i s produced, will include attempts to find out why certain chemicals that cause mutations (changes ir, the heredity-bearing genes i n living cells) do not always
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cause cancer and why cancer-causing chemicals do not always pro- (NOTE TO EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS: This information is being issued also in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.)