. +h p Pr Chustiw vafinal, Chul ; ‘et Mh? Ch kl?
= / “speed the; T tar f2- a

 

     
 

. . . . . OCREFELLER Uiyip
University of Wisconsin-Madison y RX ‘SY
(227 Doth RJ Thomas D. Brock \ OCT 14 i223
~_ 1550 Linden Drive
53705 2213 Madison, Wisconsin 53706 oh Cr CE CF ™ E prectes ot
608-262-1261 (Office) -
608-238-5050 (Residence) uv
October 11, 1988 A

Dr. Joshua Lederberg GA lee

The Rockefeller University
New York, NY 10021

Dear Josh,

Thanks for your letter of September 9, 1988. Your comments and
queries are always welcome. I have completed a first draft of my
chapter on mutation and am now well into the middle of the chapter on
mating. I hope to get some drafts to you before Christmas. Your 1987
Ann. Rev. Gen. is useful, but I have several questions:

1) Why was Tatum senior author on the 1947 J. Bact. paper? I believe
you had done all the experimental work, and you had been senior
author on the Nature and CSH papers.

2) The Genetics 1947 paper must have been submitted about the same
time as the J. Bact. paper. You are sole author on this paper. Why?

3) The fungal analogy for the bacterial mating results must obviously
have been very strong, especially since both Tatum and Ryan had
worked on Neurospora. I noted in your work the term "relative
sexuality". This obviously must have had some influence on your
interpretation of the Hayes work?

4) You have mentioned in several places of your early interest in
medicine and some regret that U.W. Genetics was in Agriculture. Did
you every have an interest in practicing medicine, or was your
interest just in medical research? I have the impression that your
medical interest is what pushed you in the direction of bacteria.

5) You asked what did Luria and Delbrick really prove? I have always
thought that the fluctuation test was rather obvious, but it clearly
started the ball rolling. Alderberg, Magasanik, and others have
written that this was the watershed paper. One of my regrets is that
the early Luria/Delbrtick correspondence (pre-1947) is missing from
the CalTech archives. I found a 1970's letter from Delbrtick to Luria

asking Luria to send back all this correspondence (which Delbritick
claimed to have sent Luria for some reason). I wrote Luria about it
and he denies ever having received the correspondence. Because
Delbriick was such a detailed letter writer, there should have been
some insights here. Luria’s autobiography is of little use, since he
wrote it from memory and made mistakes.

University of Wisconsin-Madison provides equal opportunities for admission and employment.
6) There are many slightly negative things about your early work in
Delbrick’s files. Since Delbrtick corresponded with every one, he was
a central repository of ideas, gripes, etc. Watson, in particular,
was very gleeful about Hayes’ work, mainly (I believe) because it
cast doubt on your interpretations (we won't talk about Watson's
"three chromosome model"!).

7) You mention Hayes and J/W misinterpretations in their early work.
I intend to look into this in detail. I have been corresponding with
Hayes and I enclose a document (unpublished, I believe) which he has
written for the Royal Society. It has quite a nice history of the
very early Hayes work, but not so much about the interpretations in
1955-57. You recall your letter to Science in 1955, in response to a
report of the Wollman/Jacob work.

8) You have mentioned Sonneborn as an influence and there are many
references to cytoplasmic inheritance in your papers and other early
papers on bacteria. I hope you will agree that the whole idea of
cytoplasmic inheritance confused bacterial genetics. It seems to me
that Sonneborn’s work was accepted primarily because of the force of
his personality. (I have read Dave Nanney’s article on Sonneborn and,
of course, knew Sonneborn well from my 11 years at Bloomington. You
have probably seen Saap’s book on the history of this work.) What do
you think now about how cytoplasmic inheritance affected the
interpretation of the early bacterial work? I know your paper in
Physiological Reviews where the term plasmid was coined.

9) I wonder if you have given any thoughts to the "cult of
personality" as it influences scientific development in general and
genetics in particular? Would you agree that Delbriick is valued far
in excess of his contributions because of the sheer force of his
personality. How much damage is done to developments in science by
strong personalities who let their prejudices rage? In the same vein,
one might think of Morgan's anti-chemical influence, and the lack of
recognition of Herman Muller for many years, presumably (if Carlson
is to be believed) partly because of Morgan's influence.

10) I am interested in whether the real breakthroughs (new paradigms)
might occur primarily by the lone scientist working away out of the
big centers of research. Would you say that you were on the fringe of
genetics in 1946, even though Columbia itself was a major center? How
respected was Ryan by the classical (Dobzhansky, etc.) geneticists?

 

At one time you asked me whether you had any competitors for the
Wisconsin job. I am not certain whether I responded. The only
competitor who appeared in the correspondence was Max Zelle!

You mentioned in your letter some ideas about Pasteur'’s early work. I
have heard Gerald Geison from Princeton discuss Pasteur’s work on the
attenutation of anthrax and I believe that one cannot make any sense
out of this from Pasteur'’s published papers. According to Geison (who
had access to Pasteur's original notebooks, now in the Bibliotheque
Nationale), Pasteur actually made what he did look a lot more clear-
cut than it actually was. I believe it would be stretching things
drastically to adduce any hypothesis related to plasmid loss. At any
rate, you might be interested in the enclosed page from a paper Emile
Roux wrote in 1925, at the time that d’Herelle’s work was all the
rage, about the hereditary nature of attentuation.

I hope the above questions will not burden you too much. Obviously, I
don't need an immediate answer, but would appreciate any thoughts you

may have.

Sincerely,

Thomas D. Brock