$2,000,000 'U' phoenix Drive Opens

Funds Will Operate Memorial Project For Next Five Years

A campaign to raise $2,000,000 to operate the University Memorial Phoenix Project for the next five years was launched this week, spearheaded by 104 business and industrial leaders meeting on the campus.

James C. Zeder, Chrysler Corp. vice-president and Phoenix Project campaign chairman, said initial funds of $8,000,000 raised by students, faculty, alumni and friends are nearly exhausted.

The project—a memorial to World War II dead—is a leader in research for peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Uses Described

Money spent has been used for a million-watt nuclear reactor and research facilities to support 185 projects. It also has been used to free scientists for full-time investigations and to provide information about the atomic energy field.

Zeder told the gathering that the Phoenix Project today “is the largest independent atomic research program in the world.”

Dr. Henry J. Gomberg, a U-M physicist and assistant project director, noted that its independent nature has helped strip away the secrecy from atomic energy activities.

He added that more than 300 technical publications have resulted from the projects supported research.

He said that through the project, the U-M Law School has become a leader in the field of studies related to “preventive law,” or efforts to anticipate unique legal problems of the atomic age.

A "bubble chamber,” he reminded, springs from a $1,500 Phoenix grant several years ago. Today major nations of the world are spending $20,000,000 annually for these instruments for studying the paths of speeding atomic particles.

Cites Medicine

As to medicine. Dr. Gomberg pointed to University Hospital, which now has a suite of 24 rooms for the use of radioactive materials, where a decade ago it used one room. All U-M medical students, he said, receive training in new atomic techniques.

Dr. Gomberg also mentioned bacteriology, saying that researchers are trying to find out why certain seed extracts act upon cancer cells in the test tube, but not in animals. Ways to improve the penetration of the extract into the cells are being studied.

Zeder heads a campaign committee consisting of Earl H. Cress, president of the Ann Arbor Trust Co.; Halsey Davidson, vice-president of Campbell-Ewald Advertising Co.; Andrew Kucher, vice-president of the Ford Motor Co.; George Parker, vice-president of the National Bank of Detroit; Raymond Perring, president of the Detroit Bank & Trust Co.; and Dean Ralph Sawyer of the U-M Graduate School and Prof. Fred Black, Alan MacCarthy and Lyle Nelson, all of the U-M.

Those attending the meeting from Ann Arbor included Gage R. Cooper, Thomas L. Dickinson, John S. Dobson, Jack D. Hogan, Joseph C. Hooper and Cress.