HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY

23 SHATTUCK STREET

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 021185 «
BARUJ BENACERRAF, M.D. TER AEH ESOR
ent SS OMPAR.
FABYAN PROFESSOR © COMPARATIVE PATHOLOGY
CHAIRMAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY 61 ? 732 197 1

February 8, 1979

Dr. Joshua Lederberg, President
Rockefeller University
New York, New York 10021

Dear Dr. Lederberg:

The Harvard Medical School has decided to create a Department
of Genetics. An ad hoc Committee has been appointed to consider the
structure of the Department, the resources required for its implemen-
tation and to search for several tenure Faculty members, including
the Chairman.

The members of this Committee are: Drs. Mary Ellen Avery,
David Baltimore, Jonathan Beckwith, George Cahill Jr., John David,
Bernard Davis, Walter Gilbert, Jerome Gross, Kurt Isselbacher,
Samuel A. Latt, Paul Marks, John T. Potts, Charles C. Richardson,
and Baruj Benacerraf, Chairman.

The new Department of Genetics will have initially four or
five tenure Faculty members and three to four times as many non-
tenure members.

Space for the Department is available at the Harvard Medical
School, Longwood Campus (up to 8,000 square feet) and at the
Massachusetts General Hospital (12,000 square feet). In addition,
as part of the academic resources, which can be included in the
program for genetics at the Harvard Medical School, is the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute. The Affiliated Hospital complex, which
includes the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Robert Breck Brigham
Hospital, Boston Hospital for Women (Lying-in Hospital plus the
Women's Free Hospital), is constructing a multi-storied research
building immediately adjacent and connected to the Medical School
quadrangle. The Institute will occupy three floors of this building
on a long term agreement. One, or possibly more than one, of these
three floors will be devoted to research in Genetics. This Harvard
Committee will assist in the recruitment by the Institute for one or
more scientists in Genetics research to occupy this space and to hold

\N pe
joint appointments in the Institute and in the Department of
Genetics of the Harvard Medical School. It is expected that
completion of the building will be in 1981.

Of the other tenure appointments, two will be at the
Massachusetts General Hospital, and one at the Medical School, in
space preferably contiguous to the space of the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute.

The Committee is very anxious to have your opinion on the at
specific areas of Genetics which should be developed in this
Department. They would like also to have your suggestions of
candidates whom you consider worthy of consideration for tenure
positions in such a Department and their possible availability.
Furthermore, we would like you to identify for us individuals who,
in addition to their scientific qualifications, have leadership and
administrative qualities which would enable them to chair such a
Department. We are particularly interested in identifying women and
minority candidates suitable for these positions. ?
Considering the magnitude of its task and urgency to proceed So
with it, the Committee will be extremely grateful for a prompt
answer to this request.

Yours sincerely,

D4a Mey ABE pe cle L—

Baruj Benacerraf, M.D.
Chairman

BB/ jb