THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

pro bono humani generis
1230 YORK AVENUE - NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10021-6399

Joshua Lederberg
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR

L

Prof. R. E. Smalley
Department of Chemistry
Rice University

Houston, Texas 77251

May 8, 1991

Dear Dr. Smalley

Interstellar carbon has been an object of interest (to me) for over 30 years; so I have
followed with special interest the delineation of the fullerenes.

This also harks back to a curiously unexamined question: how is "elemental" carbon
returned to the geochemical cycle?

One of my postdoc’s, Elie Shneour did some work on this some years ago (enclosure).
But I viewed these results, with "graphitic" carbon as inconclusive.

One flaw in the concept of that experiment is the definition of "carbon"! We hardly knew
how to think of separable constituents which in low proportion might have given idiosyncratic
signals.

Your discovery of C60 allows a much more precise reopening of these questions. (Or do
you already have a model of environ- mental degradation of C60 that would account for its
not having accumulated in natural environments?) The ideal reagent would be highly purified
fullerene(s) prepared with modest C14 labelling. High intensity labelling is probably
gratuitous, and may cause problems with radiochemical damage.

I hope you don’t mind my trying to foist this experimental objective on you; but no one is
better positioned at least on the chemical side. The "microbiology" is not difficult, and you
have plenty of local resources (e.g. my former student Charles Stewart). Or, if necessary I
might be able to identify other collaborators, and could consult with you on some details.

I’ve retumed to my laboratory since last July -- but we are not the best equipped for this
particular study.

In any event I hope I can enlist your interest in thinking about this issue, if you have not
already done, and if so, perhaps we could discuss further how best to approach it.

gare,

  

P2795; yee 1HC