PHYSICIAN-IN-CHIEF

18 April 1986

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
President
The Rockefeller University

Dear Josh:

Thank you for your note of April 15th. I am glad you find Dr.
Crystal a very appealing candidate. He is the formal and sole
nominee of the Hospital Search Committee for an appointment to head a
new clinical research laboratory and we urge that discussions with
him move forward as quickly as possible. A strong expression of
enthusiasm for him on your part will do much to advance his present
willingness to consider a post here. His telephone number at the NIH
is (301) 496~1597.

Dr. Crystal's nomination is a separate matter from the issue of
whether you would be willing to consider filling a second position
for the Hospital, keeping in mind that at present we have only 4
senior M.D. faculty heading laboratory groups which conduct major
programs of clinical investigation here (Breslow, Carter, Hirsch,
Kappas). This is the smallest number of active clinical
investigators that has staffed the Hospital in the nearly 20 years
that I have been at the Rockefeller. It is upon this core group that
the brunt of the responsibility for securing the Clinical Research
Center grant falls; and upon which the maintenance of a serious
clinical culture on this campus depends. It was with these
considerations in mind that the Search Committee suggested that you
consider making available another position, in addition to that for
Dr. Crystal, in the Hospital; and if you were agreeable to this, then
the Committee proposes that for this second post it focus on
recruiting a clinical neuroscientist.

If you do not see any possibility of making a second position
available for the Hospital than I think the Committee should be
informed of this at our meeting on May 6th and then be disbanded.

In the meanwhile we have, after nearly 3 years of a broad and
intensive search, come to the recommendation of Dr. Crystal, which
was forwarded to you and which we hope will be acted upon as quickly
as possible. If Dr. Crystal has accepted an offer from this
University by the time of our Site Visit for the CRC application
Dr. Joshua Lederberg
18 April 1986
-2-

(Oct. 7th & 8th), that would constitute a great strengthening of our
application. This renewal application faces serious problems, not
only because of the austere times but also because we continue to
have a shortage of active clinical investigators at this institution,
as compared with our past staffing. We would be excessively sanguine
in these circumstances to imagine that the NIH will continue the
pattern of increased funding of this CRC which has characterized the
period during which I have been responsible for this grant.

Yours sincerely,

UP

Attallah Kappas, M.D.