GSAS to Give Instruction in Bio-Chemistry

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences yesterday voted unanimously to offer graduate study in bio-chemistry, and a committee to grant M.A. and Ph.D. degrees and arrange instruction in the field was created.

In the past, the Medical school in Boston has been the only department of the University offering a graduate program in biochemistry. Although the faculty of Arts and sciences has in the past given degrees for work done at the Medical School, the GSAS has never offered biochemistry as a regular field of study.

Yesterdy's vote did not establish a department of biochemistry but merely a field of study. The faculty actually rescinded a nine year old motion to create such a department at the meeting.

Lack of Experts

A lack of experts on biochemistry caused the failure of the plan for a separate department, according to Edsall, but recent arrivals have made graduate research possible today.

Since the departments of Biology and Chemistry already give general courses in the field, many students have been forced to commute between Boston and Cambridge. By centralizing non-medical biochemistry here, the new program should eliminate and establish a less specialized field of study, John T. Edsall '23, professor of Biochemisty, said.

The move is aimed at providing facilities for graduate study for such fields as agriculture, public health, and the food and chemical industries, which have received little attention under past planning, Edsall explained.

The new program will not result in any new courses in the immediate future, but tutorial and programming work will be needed.

Edsall saw no danger of duplication with the Medical school program, but said a coordinating committee headed by Dean Bundy in planned.