UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON +: GOWER STREET WCI

DEPARTMENT OF BIOMETRY

Professor J. B. S. HALDANE Telephone EUSTON 70§0

22nd July 1957

Dear Lederberg,

Your letter of July 5th has reached me here. I do not know
‘whether it was redirected here from Calcutta, as the envelope is not
available.

I fear it may be a little hard for me to fix anything at such
short notice. Grants are usually available for people invited to the
Indian Science Congress. But this is in January. I don't know where
the money for your fare would come from in November. And I don't think
I shall know enough people by September to pull the right strings.
Whereas I do know the people who arrange guests for the science congress.
However I don't despair. Your route back to Europe would be vie Calcutta
and Bombay if you flew by Air India International.

What you say about the Jacob phenomenon is most interesting. It is
fairly like the situation in animal and plant genetics 40 years ago.
If you are the Mendel of bacteria, Jacob has got a correspondence between
a map deduced from your segregations and an order observable in time, as
Bridges got a correspondence between a linkage group and a chromosome,
and Stern, I think, first got one between genetic order and visible
breakages. But there were lots of exceptions which of course gave. the
clue to the facts in the long run.

I am sorry you did not see H. Harris when you were here. He is about
our livest medical geneticist. Every few months he finds a new pattern of
urinary aminoacid excretion, either a matter of non-reabsorption or of
metabolic block.

I will do what I can in Indie, tt as I say, I can promise nothing.
They are very short of cash at the moment.

Yours sincerely
J.Boc Wie
S. Melt
Dr Joshua Lederberg, ~
c/o The Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research,

Royal Melbourne Hospital,
Melbourne, N.2

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