THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH

66TH STREET AND YORK AVENUE
NEW YORK @21,.N.Y.

December 31, 1952

Dear Josh:

dust missed getting straightened out in our communications so will
answer yours of the 28 th imsediately. You need never apologise about the
number of your letters as they are more of a delight than a burden.

Looking over your reprint mailing list I doubt very much that there will
be any margin of overlap but the smallest and I therefore think I could go ahead
and distribute them from here. I should be more than gajd to aid you in any way
with the further distribution of reprints at the Institute. Since we all eat
together I can by sitting at the proper table for lunch communicate with

anyone I desire to.

As to the authorship of Srucés HS, the awkwardeness was that ke your idea
concerned the two of us in relation to Bruce and it was he that mentioned it to me.
Being the junkor member of the three I perhaps am the most sensitive about
such things, especially as for a while transduction was my own exclusive baby
and I had spent considerable time and effort in establishing the principles and
thh first outlines of the flagella analysis, In fact it was to this particular
aspect of any recombinational system to be found in Salmonella that my
own training and goals had pointed. Uf course no damage had been done but as I
felt that way and I feel free to communicate with you on such matters I did so.
I've communicated my feelings to Bruce wut as you say the decision is his.

To the scientific: aspects of his paperz:if he is to present linked transductions
as a fact I merely think that all of the available evidence should be marshalled
in its favor. his third double suffers from this lack and most certainly could
be similar to your discarded hypothesis of the other double. You most certainly
understanc my reservation about Fla- allelism. You may recall we had some
difficulty infetermining whether LA-22 (aromatic reqitrement) was transduced
to prototrophy by a single suppressor or allele until FA LT-22 accomplished the
Same

By survivorship of bacteria infected with 22V I meant the ngumber of
zeros expected for any particular multiple. --- Salmonella gallinarum (SW-558)
» which I always use as a base phage assay, grows more slowly then typhimurium,
Thus if small numbers of typhimurium cells are viable either because they were
non-infedted or have become lysogenic they can proliferate wim on the phage assay
plate when one is determining the recovery of phage from ‘ymitimnocircinfected
baskertae typhimuriume

iy irradiations were done with diluted broths. I have tried using LT-7
derivatives as FA assays and PLT-22 to get this same complete separation.
If one observes the plates early the plaues are & visible and the few young
transdinductions often separate from the plaques, by the time the latter have
grown out the plaques have covered them and they are lysogenic , some mottled.
Whenever I have obtained countable plaques I mimtx no longer had any viable
transductions, The inefficiency of 22B must carry you past this point or can you
do this also with 22.
with regard to the independence of duals I shall try to use streptomycin
resistance as the selective character presuming that any errors do to
phenotypic lag will be the same in the single and the double.

I don't pretend to understand the delay experid@mnt myself, The growth
plate was I preswne non-selective so that the differences don't lie there,
Perhpps due to lateral differences (inter-strain cross) different pieces have
more or less difficulty in being stabilized. I am convinced that the best way
to do the experiment is in a steady state system and although I don't like to
get involved with too many gadgets 1 think I'm going to have a turbidostat built.
These other experiments are much too laborious,

I shaliof course try mouse serums and mouse splenic extracts ete . Yes
there is much to do with the year 1952 drawing to a close. But for a while
now I am going to backtrack and see that all is in shape for our HS.

For me 1952 was a pretty good year,for the world-- well we!ll just have to
wait and see. Hy pessimism after the electitan has dimmed somewhat . I see that
Senator Me Carthy is to investigate as a first order of business the universities.
No doubt you all will be first. Lucky people.

Do you still intend to go to Chamble, and if so will you be coming
this way?

Sincerely,

b hind