Many of us in the science departments of St. John Fisher College read with great interest the interview of Dr. Donald Bain, our president, by Christine Fien (October 14). We found Dr. Bain's description of the college and its various initiatives to be accurate, but we were disappointed in the initial characterization by Ms. Fien of the biomedical research being conducted at St. John Fisher College.

Ms. Fien writes in the first sentence of the article, "Fisher doesn't have ... cutting edge medical research." While Fisher may not have large federally-funded research laboratories, it does have a number of faculty in the natural-science and pharmaceutical-science departments pursuing medically relevant research. Just a few examples of such research would include mechanisms of neurological disease, environmental reproductive toxicology, modes of bacterial pathogenesis, and pharmaceutical formulations.

As someone with an appointment at both St. John Fisher and the University of Rochester Medical Center, I would point out that the size of the laboratory has little effect on the quality of research being conducted, and that by definition, all research is at the cutting edge. Finally, Fisher's broad commitment to scientific research is evident in its sponsorship of a Science Scholarship Program (now in its ninth year), a program that recruits meritorious science students and requires a research experience.

DARYL D. HURD, PENFIELD

Hurd is associate professor biology at St. John Fisher, program director of the Science Scholars Program, and an adjunct faculty member at the Center for Neural Development and Disease, UR Medical Center.