[written in Lederberg's handwriting, Cushing]
Oct 25, 1945
Dr. Joshua Lederberg
50 Haven Ave
New York 32, N.Y.
Dear Dr. Lederberg:
You are most generous to write concerning your interesting work on Neurospora and consider the possibile [sic] overlap with our interests. As soon as possible I plant to get on with the "sulfa" work, but fear this will not be until next spring, though I'm bending every effort in that direction. I see no reason, however, and I'm sure Dr. Emerson will agree, why your work should be handicapped by this consideration. That is, it is my belief that you should have our fullest cooperation. I have just written Dr. Emerson and sent him your letter. He has all the stocks and data at present so I'm afraid you will have to wait for me to contact him before I can give you either stocks or detailed information. As soon as I hear from him I'll write you again, the point of this letter being to thank you for writing and to assure you that I am anxious to cooperate fully with the further progress of your research. Also, of course, Dr. Emerson should be consulted as the work was done with him and I should get his latest opinion on the status of the problem, for he has been investigating further points since I left Pasadena.
Our great interest is in the direction of proof that the mutation found for sulfa-resistance was introduced, rather than merely selected for, by the drug. This point
[END PAGE ONE]
[BEGIN PAGE TWO]
has yet to be answered but it is this that motivates the research. We were also interested, of course, in learning all we could about the mutation eg. mechanism of resitance [sic], mode of action in heterocaryons etc . . I gather you have a good lead on how the resistance arises as well as some of the other points. It seems to me that in this field (ie. adaptive phenomena) even an exact paralleling of experiments by two investigators is an advantage rather than disadvantage to further work and I hope we can proceed with this point-of-view in mind. I get the impression that while our work is similar in many respects we should have no reasons to worry about overlapping results other than an exchange of observations from the point of view of mutual benefit. As soon as I hear from Dr. Emerson I'll write again, but please feel free to proceed along whatever lines you think desirable to elucidate further your work on the p.a.b. mutations. As I say, we should be able to send you stocks reasonably soon.
Thank you again for your letter, I look forward to learning more of your work at first hand.
Sincerely yours,
John Cushing