April 30, 1952

Dear Dr. Nobel:

A few days ago, I received the sad word from the Rockefeller Foundation
that they would be unable to sponsor your projected visit to this
country. Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed, but one can
well imagine the intense competition for never adequate funds. I do
hope that this does not close the door on your interest and efforts
in this direction. Have you made any enqmiries concerning other subsidies?
Several of your compatriots have been travelling on W.H.O. grants; another
(Brucs Stocker) who will be visiting here for a few weeks has had a
Commonwealth Fund support.

As to the possibility of a "contribution" here, I think I may already
have indicated that wa could not ourselves arrange for your travel expenses.
If you could find these elsewhere, it might be possible to create a temporary
appointment here, for a period of two or three months, as a "Research Associate"
or "Project Associate". By American academic standards, the stipend would be
very low, probably about $300 per month, but would provide very comfortably
for your maintenance, and beyond. As there would be a considerable amount
of red tape (on ay part) te release thesa funds, I would prefer to use them
only as a last resort. This is intended as an encouragement, not a dissuasion,
and I would count myself fortunate to be able to usa then if you could not
make an alterhative arrangement.

I have besn stumting sone cytological work myself re K-12 aygotes. Under
condigfions (or rather with strains) showing very favorable frequencies of
genetic recombination, I have not found the distinctive structures figured
in your last lettar. fouid you cara to comaont any further on them? With
living mateeial, I have seen assveiations of cells like those pictured with
your letter of December 20. I think they may be indeed sigaizicant, but this
wili be difficult to verify. I have not seen L-forms at all under thése con-
ditions, and suspect that BE. coli may show ccnjugation rather than copulation.

On the other hand, quite by uccident I think I may have stumbled upon a
simple method of eliciting L-forms. For some ether work on Jaimonella motility
i had been using semi-solid agar (per liter, peptone 10g., yeast extr. 3;
gelatin 80; agar 4 and salt 5). With every Salmonelia culture examined, the
swarmingd outgrowth 1s peppered with L-type colonies! If this is transferred
to the same medium with penicillin, the bacillary forms are suppressed. E. coli
K-12 and B (non-motile) have given much the sane result, though less conspicuously.
As to why this has been overlooked, I can only suggest that the L-colonies are
practically invisible excppt under phase microscopy. ‘These observations are
only a few days old, so I can not have mich more to say, but I am very
doubtful of any genetic significance of them (which is not to minimize
their importance for other areas of microbiology.!)

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg