110 FARRERAS
Bernhard continued the section’s work on DNA and RNA, manufac
turing synthetic polynucleotides that allowed for the examination of
the structure of polyadenylic acid in an attempt to understand the
structure of RNA that allowed for information to be transferred from
DNA to protein.^7 The time and work devoted to determining the se
quence of amino acids was so substantial that, in 1959, Bernhard intro
duced IBM engineers and mathematicians to the concept of “breaking
the code” for the nucleic acid sequencing of amino acids in genetic
transmission (and all protein synthesis). He hoped the computer would
markedly reduce the time required to identify the sites of genetically
determined developmental and metabolic errors.^8
Kety retained the position of acting chief of the laboratory until
he could recruit a biochemist to head it, and in the meantime created
an NIMH-supported Section on Cerebral Metabolism within it for his
own work. When Kety had left the University of Pennsylvania to join
the NIH, he had been reluctant to recruit his colleagues away from the
university, but when he heard that Louis Sokoloff, with whom he had
worked at the University of Pennsylvania, was about to accept a posi
tion with the Naval Air Development Center, Kety asked him in January
1954 to be the co-chief of this section.^9 The section’s research focused
on measurements of nutrition, circulation, and oxygen consumption of
the living brain by means of the nitrous oxide technique in order to
study the effects of aging, anxiety, and hallucinogenic and therapeutic
drugs (e.g., LSD, Thyroxine).^10 When Kety stepped down as scientific
director in late 1956, to be replaced by Livingston and to become the
chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Science, the Section on Cerebral
Metabolism and its members were transferred from the Laboratory of
Neurochemistry to the Laboratory of Clinical Science.^11
Kety appointed biochemist Roscoe O. Brady as chief of the
NINDB-supported Section on Lipid Chemistry of the laboratory.^12 Brady
had been in charge of the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory at the Naval
Hospital in Bethesda, conducting research on long-chain fatty acid
synthesis and also on sulfhydryl metabolism in his spare time with Earl
Stadtman at the NHI. After two and a half years at the Naval Hospital,
Brady arrived at the NINDB on September 1954 to investigate lipid
metabolism in the central and peripheral nervous systems.^13