UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

PITTSBURGH 13, PENNSYLVANIA

DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY September 23, 1958

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Medical Genetics
The University of Wisconsin
School of Medicine

Genetics Building

Madison 6, Wisconsin

Dear Dr. Lederberg:

Thank you for your letter of September 16 and the outline of your
proposed model of antibody synthesis. | agree that your model or something
very close to it is probably as close as we can come to the fundamental aspects
of the immune response with the experimental observations at hand. As you
may know Dr. Talmage, former!y of our Department, has had somewhat similar
ideas. One of the difficulties we had with such a scheme was devising a means
by which the administration of antigen would stimulate the appropriate cells to
multiply and form antibody. Certainly the combination of antigen with globulins
of proper configuration in the serum followed by elimination of these globulins
does not seem to provide an adequate stimulus for antibody production. | would
be much interested in your thoughts on this aspect of the problem.

lam enclosing the reprint on the "Specificity of the Secondary Response, "
which you requested plus a preceding paper on the "Immunochemical Characterization
of the Cross Reactions Between the Antigens Employed," by Dr. Maurer. In addition
lam including five . reprints covering some of our work on cell transfer experiments
in which we have attempted to characterize the cell types involved in antibody
production and the morphologic transitions of these cells during the stages of antibody
production. The first paper in this series also gives some idea of the amount of antibody
which can be produced by an individual cell.

Sincerely yours, ly
Leh ff M. D.
Chairman, Department of Pathology

FJD/bjk

Enclosures