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STANFORD UNIVERSITY
MEDICAL CENTER
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS DAvenport 1-1200
School of Medicine October 26, 1961 Cables STANMED

Mr. R. Sargent Shriver, Jr.
Edson Lane
Rockville, Maryland

Dear Mr. Shriver:

| was deeply moved by the occasion of the panel on mental retardation
last Wednesday. Perhaps you are too familiar with such affairs to share
the experience, but | was deeply gratified at the interest the President
showed In advancing the scientific attack on the problem. The statement
issued over his name was an excellent one, and the panel wili have to work
very hard to improve on it for its own report.

| am writing now in the spirit of the same occasion, to ask your help
In getting our own program under way. Stanford is not a very large school,
but ! think we can be proud of the quality of scientific and medical talent
that has collected here, with a unique spirit of ident! ficatlon with medical
progress through science. You already have a program that Dr. Kretchmer and
| and our colleagues have formulated. But may | write you frankly what we
really need, what would be a tremendous boost to realizing our talents and
energies? This is very simple: the space and facilities to do our work.
There are dozens of us who have Ideas and programs that we are eager to pursue
and are frustrated by the Limitation in working space. "Blank Building" would
cost about 4.5 million; its completion would generate research of an intensity
to match this capital cost in three te five years. This is work now
agonizingly undone!

in our proposals, we Indicated a need of a half-million for construction,
about a million more in the long-run for other costs. If you really wanted to
give research in mental retardation a boost, you would give us the means to
put up this building ~ $2 million would do it for sure, $1 million would go
a long way.

How will all this relate to mental retardation? The bultding would
support a wide range of research activity under the general heading of molecular
medicine. Mental retardation is so pervasive a problem that it is hard to
know in advance what will bear on it, though | think | could make an explicit
case for a large fraction of the basic work my colleagues are dotng. Of
course, It Is Important to keep re-emphasizing the problem, so that we will
be constantly alert for the appearance of possible solutions.

 
R. Sargent Shriver, Jr. 2 October 26, 1961

Dr. Kretchmer and 1 had already discussed with you some of the educatIonal
programs we had in mind; cchem will foifow. 1 can also assure you af the
persistence of my own interest, and that { would take persona! responsibility
to be a gadfly.

At your committees meeting here, | freely admitted | did not know the
most useful approach that | could formulate at that time for a more specific
attack On mental retardation. But | have been pondering over this. New, |
would Tike to set up a laboratory (with Norman) to start a rather bread program
in neurochemistry, to sort out the major groups of proteins found in the
brain, by analogy with the analysis of blood protein that has been so fruitful.
This is a hack kind of job, but it needs to be done as the basis for further
work on variation of specific protein components In velation to heredity,
develcpment and disease. This program would have very wide ramifications
for deveiopment and need not be confined to the nervous system. Just within
the last few years, the technology has been developed that wil] let us think
of such a massive attack, one whose scepe does call fer a boid concentration
of effort. This is an important area of work which can be financed for
something like 100,000 a year and the space to put It in. This is a sizeable
amount of money, but undoubtedly a good investment, and If we had the space
we could find the staff and running costs.

This is not the only program ~ others will follow if we have the opportunity
to work them out. The important thing is to suppert centers of good basic
research, and to maintain a spiriz of responsibility to the problem, The Kennedy
Foundation’s support of "Blanx Building! would be a striking way to do this.

| cam understand that your group would also be preoccupied with problems
of care, looking at the present problem as well as the understanding and prevention
of new cases. Norman and [| must took at this from slightly different angles.
From my view of the specific strength of Stanford, | feel that we should not
commit Stanford Medical School to a major effort In this direction, which could
so drown us in community responsibilitics as to be a serious distraction from
the research needed to mitigate the future problem. When we had located additional
perceptive and qualified men for this jcb who Yit the other aspects of Stanford's
approach, or could train them ourselves, we would certainly want to expand our
present program. We recognize the need for clinical contact, both as a measure
of community responsibility, and es material and Inspiration for research, and
Norman might weli want to move even faster on this than | do. At this stage,
1, myself, think we would do better to stress our basic research goals locally
and work out cooperative programs with the county agencies for care to be
sure of the fullest use of our educational and research resources,

Whether or not the Foundation can heip, as ! am asking, we mean to
pursue these aims. But you could save us as much as two or three years, and
with it an initiative and morale that might be harder to sustain otherwise!
R. Sargent Shriver, Jr. 3 October 26, 1961

lt happens | have ev unusually fuii calendar this month (for
someone trying to stay in the lab) and wiil be east November 2, Nevember 12=
13, and December 20. I woutd be happy to spend time to discuss these
matters just before or after these dates, or another time if more convenient
to you, if it could help us get whare, 1 am sure, we al! want to go.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics