ought to give them credit for carrying out the responsibilities for which they are paid.

Senator EVANS. If that is the case, are you saying that that is not what they did in terms of the mirror technology?

Dr. DEAN. I am saying in fact if that is what they decide to do within the budget they have, if that is the budget they get, I think we ought to back them on their decision. I think the peer review says that we would like to maintain a mirror program.

If the House of Representatives says if we give you a little more money, would you change your decision, I think the Department would say they would like to retain the small programs if they had more money. If we had more money, I think we ought to maintain the small programs also.

Senator EVANS. So, we are budget limited on some of these things and when we decide to quit something because it appears to be less promising than some other source, although it may still have some promise, but budgetarily we can't do everything, now with the House coming back and saying, it is important, we would like to throw $30 million more at you, it is obvious the Department of Energy will say if you are going to throw it at us, we will catch it.

Is there not another decision to make at this point and not say, OK, $30 million more and it is for magnetic or for mirror fusion? If we are budget constrained in this, we are budget constrained in a whole lot of energy research areas. Should we not say if you are going to give us $30 million more, here is where the $30 million ought to go, not in this one specific area that you happen to be interested in or Members of the House put it forward for, but say that is not the way to spend your money if in fact it isn't?

Maybe it is in nuclear medicine. We may have dissenting views here as to where $30 million might go for the benefit of the country.

Dr. DEAN. I can't really comment on that. I can only say that within the fusion advisory group they would like to maintain a mirror program as part of the U.S. effort. The House of Representatives agrees with that and they would like to provide money. They have to balance all these things also and have to balance aginst the water projects and still come up with that money.

I applaud them for it. I hope you will agree that this $25 million will be well spent. If you in your wisdom decide you have other things to cover, I respect your judgment also.

Senator EVANS. I have heard it said we ought to pay attention to the scientists and review panels and people in the Department of Energy and managers for these kinds of priorities.

Dr. DEAN. Once they know what their budget is, I believe we should do that.

Senator EVANS. If they have $30 million in the budget, should we not allow them to review the situation to see where they want to spend it?

Dr. DEAN. I believe you should allow them to distribute it on those programs that in their judgment the money should go to. I don't believe you should tell them what program the money should go to.

Senator EVANS. In that process we should have the response from them. Otherwise they will be obligated to spend it on this particular piece of research because that is the basis on which the extra money was given to them, but the Members of Congress and House of Representatives who put this money in put it in without having the benefit of another set of recommendations from the Department.

Dr. DEAN. They did have available to them a result of the peer review that the Department carried out in the past few months. They did have available to them the recommendations of the fusion advisory committee which are very consistent with the records in the House report. I believe that the Department feels very comfortable with both.

Senator EVANS. That has to do with the potential in the field and the worth and value of this particular element of magnetic fusion research. I don't think any of those bodies have dealt with the question of whether $30 million more would be better spent in some other one of the broad non-fusion-oriented elements of research, many of which have been cut back.

Dr. DEAN. That is true. I can't really comment. I think that the Department of Energy has not asked for this money is what you are saying and, therefore, they have not said if they could have $30 million, what they would do with it. No one has given that option and I know of no case where the Appropriations Committee has given them that option. I am not sure they have had that option. Senator EVANS. I think it is appropriate to ask the question. If the answer remains the same, then that is fine, that is what we should do.

Dr. DEAN. I would hope your committee would find ways to add more money to a lot more energy programs and we are not just dealing with $30 million.

Senator EVANS. Let me turn to nuclear medicine.

To what degree is the research on nuclear medicine, things that are going on? The first question is: How is that money actually utilized in research?

Is it further transferred from the Department to various universities and similar labs for conducting that research? Is a good share of it done through and directed by the Department of Energy?

Dr. DWORKIN. Most of that is competitive, grants of one sort or another to labs supported by DOE and universities. These labs carry out the research on the basis of program grant requests.

Senator EVANS. Are you satisfied with the interchange of information that comes from the separate, I would guess sometimes pretty comparable pieces of research? Is there good exchange of information so that we get maximum benefits out of the separate pieces of research?

Dr. DWORKIN. I think the ordinary system that has been used in the medical field is publishing referee papers, presenting material at scientific meetings similar to the one going on in Washington now. This seems to be a pretty good method of disseminating such information usually on a referred basis so that the quality of the work is kept at the optimum. ́

Senator EVANS. Do we have any good system-I notice in a lot of other fields of research and gathering of information that we some

times develop more good information than we are able to catalog and easily transfer from one person to another.

We find in too many instances sort of duplicating efforts being carried out without the knowledge of the several parties carrying out that research.

In your field, in the nuclear medicine field, is there some good way of exchanging information beyond just what you have mentioned which I understand is a traditional and normal way to do it?

It seems to me we are getting to the point where information development, research development is so broad and so fast, it is almost exploding, that it is difficult to ensure that any one researcher has access to information about the same kind of research going on somewhere else.

Have we tried to develop any kind of center or exchange or even, I suppose, a computerized way of collecting and disseminating information?

Dr. DWORKIN. I think it is a possibility because there is a good deal of information accumulating. However, most of these programs that I have alluded to and that we have requested funding for are long-term programs.

In other words, the temporal delay between the time of putting in the grant request and completing the research is fairly long and that information has some time during that period to travel between various centers. And it is a small group that does this research. There aren't dozens and dozens of centers.

The number of centers are few and they are small clubs in a way in that very few places have facilities to carry out the sophisticated kinds of research that is required. Although the risk exists, I don't think it is too likley there will be many institutions that are carrying on similar work. Nonetheless, some duplication is required for verification.

Senator EVANS. That is almost deliberate duplication or at least desirable?

Dr. DWORKIN. It is desirable.

Senator EVANS. You say it is a small club.

Are we at the point where the club ought to be expanded?

Dr. DWORKIN. The doors of the club are not closed. Anyone who feels that they have a capablility for competing for such grant requests may certainly do so.

Senator EVANS. Is the initiation fee too high for them to get in? What do they have to have before they are really looked on as competitors?

Dr. DWORKIN. They have to have some facilities, they have to have some physical facilities, they have to have the manpower, and this is built up slowly over a period of time.

There are several labs in the United States, however, that have these facilities and certainly deserve support.

Senator EVANS. At what point does the research get translated into the kind of equipment, the kind of actual patient-oriented activities and is that portion of this whole continuum adequate?

Do we have the people who will pick up on the research and translate it into the kind of equipment and processes that are useful for patients?

Dr. DWORKIN. Can I ask Dr. Wolf to address that? He runs such a lab and perhaps he can address that better than I can.

Senator EVANS. Please. Identify yourself for the record.

Dr. WOLF. My name is Alfred P. Wolf, chairman of the chemistry department at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Senator, I think there are many examples of this transfer. Perhaps a good example is the one that Dr. Dworkin brought up, namely, positron emission tomography.

In 1976 all this work was being done in the United States. There were only two companies which provided synchrotrons. There were no companies at that time which provided positron emission tomographs.

In this year there are 60 laboratories worldwide that have picked up this technology. There are now five companies that produce synchrotrons. There are approximately five companies that are in the positron tomograph field. These depend on the high technology of labs that have the wherewithal to do this research. They depend on this technology in order to expand this.

So, there is no question that the kind of high technology that the Department of Energy supports is translated into industry.

I would like to address a question that you asked, namely, how do people communicate?

In this area the communication is excellent. We have phone lines. We talk to each other constantly so that unnecessary duplication is usually avoided in this field.

Senator EVANS. We thank you all for your testimony in two fascinating fields. I think we all wish that we could do what was necessary to move as rapidly as research will allow us to move.

I think that probably I won't even ask the question, but I suspect all of you agree that research by its nature is sequential, as Dr. Trivelpiece said of Newton, that you can't just throw money at basic research and expect answers promptly. You build on what each one discovers and how that leads to the next discovery, trying to get some of that built into some of the other things we are trying to do in military research right now.

Thank you very much for your testimony and I think that ends the panel.

The hearing is adjourned.

Dr. DWORKIN. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]