Calendar: 1970-1971 Page 442

Annual Report of the Delegacy lxvii Departmental Notes Professor Arnstein read paper at the sixth meeting of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies and as Secretary-General attended the Council Meeting of FEBS in Madrid During visit to the University of Oulu Finland under the auspices of the British Council he gave course of four lectures on protein biosynthesis and also lectured in Oslo at the invitation of the Norwegian Biochemical Society He was elected Chairman of the University of London Board of Studies in Biochemistry for three years from January 1969 Dr Cannon attended the sixth FEBS meeting in Madrid and pre- sented paper at the meeting of the Biochemical Society in Glasgow Dr Margot Kogut read paper at the second meeting of the North- West European Group of Microbiological Societies which was held in Stockholm Dr Mary Whittaker gave invited papers at meeting of the Pharma- cological Biochemistry Group of the Biochemical Society and at the International Symposium on Drug Sensitivity organised by the Royal Society of Medicine The research work of the department continued to expand as result of the considerable support by the Medical and Science Research Coun- cils The approval of an grant to Dr Stevens who joined the department in January for the purchase of an Analytical Ultracentri- fuge is particularly gratifying Professor Arnstein and members of his Research Group continued to investigate the mechanism of protein biosynthesis with special reference to chain initiation and the function of ribosomal sub- particles in mammalian cells Dr Darbre and his colleagues made further progress in developing the application of gas chromatography to the quantitative estimation of protein amino acids As result of their work the volatile derivatives of these amino acids which are used in this method are now available commercially Dr Cannon investigated the mode of action of the antibiotic chloram- phenicol and Dr Kogut studied the effect of another antibotic strepto- mycin on bacterial ribosomes Dr Whittaker's work on cholinesterase variants was actively pursued and extended to other esterases including the arylesterases Research on the different inherited forms of another enzyme adenosine de- aminase was carried out by Dr Spencer who succeeded in purifying