August 20, 1973

Dr. Martin Pollock

Department of Molecular Biology
King's Buildings

Mayfield Road

Edinburgh EH9 3JR ENGLAND

Dear Martin,

Thank you for exhuming the reference in Nature 1953 on "Bacterial
information".

That phrase about no material exchange of substances does have a
peculiar ring today,ddeen't it: But I think we have to be careful not
to overinterpret it. What I think they may have had in mind would be the
modification of a self-sustaining reaction state in one cell line by
stimuli, be they chemical or electrical, that are not necessarily themselves
part of a self-reproducing particle. You may remember that Delbriick had
some fun seth such discussions, and I am enclosing a few archaic remarks
of my own, wlthough I have to say that the criterion of the number of bits
of information which are sustained by the self-reproducing system is still
an effective criterion.

However, the model probably went a little deeper. Harriett Taylor
was quite reluctant to talk about transforming substances rather than
transforming principles. Maurice halave to say was a little bit upset
that I had left out much reference to her in my note to Nature and
I had to tell him that I thought that she really did not believe that
material recombination was playing a role in the pneumococcus tranformation.
You can get some idea of this from her paper in the Cold Spring Harbor
Symposia, this was reinforced in her personal conversation and correspondence
with me. While Maurice thinks I am all wrong about my interpretation of
her attitudes about this I certainly do not want to pour any salt into
old wounds.

I wonder if you getld get Jim Watson to explain what he thought he
meant by that note.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr
Enclosure