Biogate Update

The Biology Department will take no further action against the Houghton-Mifflin publishing company for its advertisement-linking University labs to the science thriller novel "Spirals" Department Chairman Daniel Branton said yesterday.

The Biology faculty recently criticized the radio commercials because department members said they failed to differentiate between fact and the fiction by implying that malignant-organisms from the bio labs are infecting the citizens of Cambridge, Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 decided earlier this month not to pursue the case according to John Dowling '57, Professor of Biology

All of the "Spiral" ads have been discontinued except one cooperative ad with the Lauriat bookshop, according to Adrienne Alger, a public relations officer at Houghton Mifflin

But this is not the last the department will hear of "Spirals". Author William Patrick a science editor at the Harvard University Press, said he has received an offer to make the book into a film

'"Spirals' has not been officially bought it's only up for option." Alger said explaining that the company that made the $7500 down-payment this week has two to three months to come up with the financing. "Otherwise the rights go back up for sale she added.

Because of the University's recent decision to restrict filming rights to all but producers of educational, non-commercial films, the film's producers will have to look elsewhere for a location.

Patricks's Hollywood agent Irene Webb said that the movie would be filmed at Oxford University by British producer Peter Fetterman. "We didn't expect to get much cooperation from the Biology Department," Patrick said.