Davineon Callege

Davidson, North Carolina

 

DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY 3/5/62

Dr.Joshua Lederberg
Stanford University Medical Center
Palo Alto,California

Dear Dr.Lederberg:

Dr.Norman G.Anderson of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Biology Division brought a portion of your article " Exobioiogy:
Approaches to Life beyond the Harth " which appeared in Science
(8/12/60) to my attention. The part in which we were especially
interested was the sentence in the section on experimental
approaches: " Larger samples, collected by a soil auger, could

be subjected to a preliminary concentration of nonmineral components
by flotation in a dense liquid. "

During the past two years I heve worked on separating organic
and inorganic components of river water and sedimented mud in
density gradients trying to ascertain the distribution of radio-
nuclides between these components. Thus far the method has been
fairly successful and I have high hopes for future improvement
when new density gradients, now being developed, are in full use.

Your article is one of the few I have come across suggesting
the use of density gradients for the separation of organic from
inorganic material. If you wish, I will be happy to send you more

y detailed reports of my own work along these lines, and I would

very much appreciate any information you can send me about your
work in this area.

‘Lin Stam iv]

Yours truly,

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wn, T. Lammers,
Asst.Professor of Biology

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