Microsomal particles and protein synthesis; papers presented at the First Symposium of the Biophysical Society, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, February 5, 6, and 8, 1958

The formation of a new society provides an occasion for innovations in the forms of meetings and publications.The Program Committee of the Bio- physical Society attempted to seize this opportunity in arranging the 1958 meet- ing at Cambridge.In addition to the usual short contributed papers, review papers were scheduled for the three afternoon sessions to inform the membership of progress and problems in selected areas of biophysics.The contributed papers in these areas were allocated ample time for presentation and discus- sion, resulting in what might be called "contributed symposia."Those work- ing in the field had the advantages of a symposium type of meeting; those less familiar had an introduction provided by the review papers followed by an opportunity to participate in the detailed technical sessions.It also appeared desirable to alter the usual publication procedures.Customarily the complete proceedings of "invited symposia" are published but only the abstracts of short contributions.The twenty papers dealing with micro- somal particles normally would be published individually during the next two years, scattered through different issues of five or ten journals.Alternatively, it would be possible to publish a transcript of the symposium.This procedure would provide a more complete account than is given in the abstracts; the material would be in one volume; and it could be issued much more rapidly than individual contributions to journals.Both the Council of the Biophysical Society and a majority of the contributors favored publication of the symposium material.Transcripts, however, require an enormous editorial effort.It therefore seemed preferable to request the contributors to provide their own edited tran- scripts.These transcripts have been accepted with the understanding that pub- lication in this volume which records material presented at a meeting would not preclude later publication in the usual journals.The purpose of this volume is not to present well established theories or reviews of well known work.Rather, it is to publish new facts and new data while they are still fresh, useful, and possibly wrong.The relative costs of re- search time and publication make such a book worth purchasing if it saves no more than an hour of research time.