THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

pro bono humanis generis
1230 YORK AVENUE - NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10021-6399

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
December 28, 1987

Sir Gustav J. D. Nossal
Hall Institute
Melbourne

Dear Gus:

Following up on the enclosed, I’m trying to assemble my papers for other "chapters" of
memoir. I am having a lot of nostalgic pleasure going over our correspondence ca. 1957 -
1961, those early days of antibody-formation theory. I do have some problem, not having

kept up with all the experiments; but can I ask you a couple of questions?

1) I don’t suppose you kept the early drafts of our paper that came out in Nature, 1958. It’s
hard to make sense of some of our discussion without that.

2) What’s the last word, from our now comfortable retrospection, about 1 or 2 antibodies per
cell? Not just current theory, but how to understand the exptl. results, yours & Cohn-Attardi
included. Should we just put all the complication down to the methodological problems of
getting clean cells and the quantitative aspects of assay?

3) At what point (if any prior to monoclonal antibodies) did the die-hards give in?

Please do point me to your own retrospective writings that I should attend most closely.

All the best,

   

oshua Lederberg

srehar’ “12/28 Joa
pr Vg ey