THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

49 WEST 49th STREET, NEW YORK 20

THE NATURAL SCIENCES

WARREN WEAVER, DIRECTOR
HARRY M. MILLER, JR., ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
WILLIAM F. LOOMIS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

GERARD R, POMERAT, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR + ~
, January li, 1951

Dear Professor Lederberg:

In answer to your letter of December 23 in which you
requested an extension of your current grant, I am sorry to inform
you that there is a three-year limitation on grants in eid awarded
to any one individual research worker. This makes it impossible
for us to authorize such an extension as you request. Im other
words, any sum not utilized by you before May 1, 1951, will auto-—
matically revert to the Foundation.

In this connection, I might say that your original grant
was "for the purchase of special equipment and expendable supplies,"
under which it is certainly legitimate for you to purchase "labora-
tory apparatus, equipment, glassware and supplies" as requested in
your letter. In other words, no modification of the grant need be
made for the above purposes.

Perhaps I should enlarge slightly on the three-year
Limitation of the grant in aid program. In the Foundation, these
grants in aid are made on the sole recommendation of the divisional
officers, and are not discussed individually by the Board of Trustees
of The Rockefeller Foundation. Foliowing the compietion of the
three years implicit in such a program, any renewal must be presented
under a different heading that requires the approval of the Trustees.
The first paragraph above, therefore, is not to be interpreted in
the sense that a renewal of your grant is impossible, but rather as
an indication that the three-year period of grant in aid support
expires May 1, 1951, following which the more formal mechanism of
a "Trustee action" must be initiated.

I hope the above legalities have been made clear, and if
you have any further questions please feel free to write to me at
any time.

Sincerely yours,

ky) Mlectiv P= hrrw in

William F. Loomis
Professor Joshua Lederberg
Department of Genetics
The University of Wisconsin
Madison 6
Wisconsin

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