April 2, 1950,

Dr, BE. L. Tatuna,
Dept. Biology,
Stanford University,
Cadfornia,.

Dear Ed:

After several new attempts to contact the Strasbourg group, following
Boivin's unfortunate decease, I finally managed to elicit a reply from
Prof. Robert Tulesne, who has been publishing lately on the significance
of L-forms. He wrote that he has attempted to revive Cl and o2, but
could find only the rough forms, and begged to receive the smooth forms
fn order to reinitiate the work on transfommation. Rather than rely on
the rather decrepit cultures I had maintained here, I askad Dave to send
lyophil tubes from OBL. These were— you guessed it- completely rough.

Prom whkt I can remember of their ancient appearance, they always have

been rough, which would be in accord with the absence of poly-uronide in

our "C2-S", But the acriflavine test is mich more objective, and on the
lyophil cultures, anyhow, showed only rough colonies. Do you have anything
to suggest a smooth culture in or out of your trensfers of Cl pr C2?

Unless Boivin sent his smooth cultures somenhere else where they may have
been maintained, it looks as 4f this is the end of the story. I have sent
our ClL-C2 strains back to Tulasne on the notion that he might be able to
recognize a rare smooth survivor, but I am very doubtful of this possibility.

Have you been able to give anytthought to the reprinting project
mentioned in my letter of 41 17 I have had favorable replies fron
Beadle, Luria, Hershey, Demerec, Coulson, and Robinow; Delbruck is
willing to cooperate, but skeptical.

flothing very mich new.— A K-12 mtant which makes galactosidase, and
some other typically adaptive enzymes, constitutively, vis. on synthetic
giucose medium ; some little progress on the cytological differentiation
of haploids and diplodd K-12; nothing on Salmonella. Esther has just finished
writing her thesia, and sends her best.

Sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg