toa.

May 28, 1956

Dear Norton:

While Rollin was visiting Madison a while ago I had a hunch about
protoplasts, and in fact asked him: what would E. coli do in penicillin
plus guoros®. He didn't know, so I did a Saturday afternoon experiment,
which rather surprisingly worked out, as you see from the enclosure.
You're the first person outside the lab that 28 I've brought this up
with; from what I've heard, Sol Spiegelman is so wrapped up with lactase
synthesis by wall (2 ?) that his interest in this may be less
acute than formerly; I don't know who else besides yourself would be
imesdiately interested. Anyhow, here it is, and I hope the method is some

help tam to you, whether sekemur your mysterious extract does the same
thing or not.

I am particularly intrigued by the high viability of these beasts, and
am trying to see whether we can get any genetic effects fetectable in the
viable clones from them. I gathered your potential interests were somewhat
broader, but anyhow here's one more tool.

Will we see you at Baltimore? I don't think we'll be by for the CSH
symposium, but we might manage to get east later on in the sumer.

Nothing much else new. I'm spending most of my time trying to write up
chaine! That's been the darndest thing to try to organise the data on.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Ledergerg