FEDERAL SECURITY AGENCY
U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH

 

NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE BETHESDA 14, MD.
Refer to: NC-RB-BS December 10, 1951
AIR MAIL

Dre Je Lederberg
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin

Dear Doctor Lederberg:

It is regretted that this letter did not follow
promptly the invitation to participate in the 2nd National
Cancer Conference. I learned only recently to whom the
formal invitations had been sent.

The committee responsible for the program on
Genetics for the Conference is composed of Dr. C. C. Little ’
Dr. W. E. Heston, Dr. G. Gomori and the writer.

We hope to bring together during the last day
of our meetings some of the foremost geneticists to discuss
the genetical approach to the cancer problem. In the
formal invitation you noted that one of the primary purposes
for the Conference is "a teaching one", We adopted this
suggestion for the meetings during the first two days, but
for the last day we thought the meeting could be beneficial
to both teachers and audience. We are looking forward to
this meeting as the most interesting of our program, because
of the high caliber of the speakers and the fundamental nature
of the subject.

The subjects assigned were tentative and made as
broad as possible to give the speacer a wide choice of topics.

We hope you: will discuss your interesting work
with bacteria and, if you care to do SO, present your
opinion as to how it may be related to the cancer problem.
Dr. Sonneborn will present his wrk with Paramecia and has
accepted the subject, "Genetic Mechanisms in Relation to
Cancer". We hope to have Dr. Beadle discuss the subject
Dre Je Lederberg =2- December 10, 1951

of genetics in disease and Dr. Mc Clintock to present
her work on cytogenetics. Contrary to the invitation,
we will not have a discussor for these papers but have
asked Dr. Le Co Dunn to summarize the meetings

The Committee hopes you will be able to accept
_ the invitation, because we are especially anxious to ob~
tain the viewpoint of geneticists who are not interested
primarily in the cancer problem.

Sincerely yours,
Ub Cauomed

He B. Andervont