June 12, 1967

Dr. Tracy Sonneborn
Department of Zoology
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana 47405

Dear Tracy:

I was quite delighted to receive your letter of June 4. I have known of
your interest in the problem of accumulation of genetic damage with paternal
age, and I would be very pleased if I could make any contribution towards
making the maximum use of the investment you have already made in the situa-
tion.

I believe you are right in thinking we are very well equipped from a technical
standpoint to deal with files of this kind. It is also true that I have per-
haps become too skeptical of the utility of information collected by mass
surveys of this kind from our experiences with census data. The possibilities
of very serious blases in ascertainment are very difficult to cope with.

Nevertheless, I would be extemmely enthusiastic about making some effort to
get the best out of the situatéon, and my a priori outlook may be altogether
too gloomy, especially if you have been able to have some direct relation-

ship with the Health Department in the way in which it collects its records.

In any event, I would be very pleased to get some more detailed information
from you about the nature of the file and the characteristics that are included
in each record.

I understand very well the "conditions" that you mentioned as attached to your
offer and far from balking at any of them, I would be the first to insist upon
them. Besides the study on accumulated genetic damage--which ig one that my
colleague, Dr. Howard Cann of the Pediatrics Department, would certainly share
deep interest in--there are also a number of other questions that I might like
to ask, but before fommulating them I should see what is in the records.

We do have an excellent time-sharing computer system which makes it possible
for us to conduct our interrogations on essentially a real time basis from a
typewriter in my office. This unquestionably gives an investigator much
deeper access to the file, since he is able to get preliminary answers at
least to many of his questions while he is still interested in them, and the
iterative process characteristic of other kinds of research is now available
in these studies in a mach more convenient way.
Dr. Tracy Sonneborn June 12, 1967

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I would like to be able to add a condition, but of course have no way of
insisting upon it, namely, that if we do take advantage of your offer,
that it also be coupled with some hope of seeing you here in person some
time to see how the system works and to talk over many other issues.

I have just come back from a trip to Europe which was accented by my very
near success in managing to be in Israel just during the invasion, but while
I was denied that opportunity by a near-misconnection of flights, at least
my baggage had the opportunity of sitting in the Tel Aviv airport during
those rather exciting times.

On all of the fronts all goes well, and calmly. All the best to you.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics