APR 24 1972

THE WALTER AND ELIZA HALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

POSTAL ADDRESS: POST OFFICE, ROYAL MELBOURNE HOSPITAL, VICTORIA 3050. AUSTRALIA. TELEPHONE 347-1511

 

AFFILIATED WITH
THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
AND DIRECTOR: PROFESSOR G. J. V. NOSSAL, C.B.E., F.A.A.

THE ROYAL MELBOURNE HOSPITAL
19th April, 1972

Professor Joshua Lederberg,
Department of Genetics,

Stanford University School of Medicine,
PALO ALTO, California, U.S.A.

 

Dear Josh,

Could I engage your attention in a long range plan
for you and your wife to visit Australia ? Many of us who were
youngsters during your 1957 visit remember it as one of the most
stimulating experiences in their scientific formation, and would
like to think that a repeat dose might have an equally electrifying
effect on the current younger generation. Also, some of us would
deeply appreciate the chance to renew contacts at the personal level.

A most appropriate vehicle for such a visit would
be the Rubbo Lecture for 1974. This distinguished lectureship
commemorates the work and life of Syd Rubbo who, as you know,
died very suddenly three years ago. It is traditionally held in
association with the national meeting of the Australian Society of
Microbiology, in May. The exact date for May 1974 will not be
settled until the Council of ASM meets towards the end of May 1972.
We would like to be able to work out a plan that would allow you and
your wife to have a fairly leisurely visit to Australia, extending
perhaps for two or three weeks. There would be several alternatjve -
ways of financing this. Two possibilities, not mutually exclusive,
would be to make you a Felton Bequests’ Visiting Professor to the
School of Microbiology of the University of Melbourne and the
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for a period of two weeks - Jam
on the Felton Bequests’ Committee and feel confident that they
would jump at the chance of sponsoring your visit; also, the
Annual General Meeting of the Australian Academy of Science is
always held on the last Thursday and Friday of April, and in 1974
the Symposium will be on a biological topic - if we thought that you
would be in the country, we could plan to more or less structure the
Symposium around yourself. Needless to say, the Rubbo Lecture alone
would cover your first class fare together with a modest honorarium,

/2..
Professor Joshua Lederberg 19th April, 1972

but one of the latter plans would allow us not only to invite your wife,
but to structure the financial arrangements in a fashion more appropriate
to your status.

I know itis difficult to organise one's thoughts so far
ahead, but I felt I should let you know how strongly David White,
Bruce Holloway, Jim Pittard, Frank Gibson, Frank Fenner (not to
speak of Mac and Linda Burnet or Gus and Lyn Nossal!) feel about
this possibility.

With warmest regards and hoping to hear from you
soon.

Yours, as ever

Copy to: Professor D.O. White