THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE

Madison 6

DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS

June 18, 1954

Dear Luca:

I am glad to have the detailed information on the ambiguity of your
plans, #é but Esther and I will be grievously disappointed if you should
find it impossible to have your wife accompany you. In line of your re-
marks, I will suspend looking for housing, but do not think you will have
serious trouble-- the Burris house was simply an unusual and unexpected
opportunity, but even this may still possibly be on the marketlater.

One more detail, if you do arrive early, we should have an agreed
intermediary in New York for the exchange of messages, etc. Unfortuantely
Ryan will be in Califania, and Zinder somewhat inconveniently located
(about 25 mi. from New York) for this purpose at Cold Spring Harbor, though
I am sure you will want to visit there and Rockefeller Institute (his
regular place) as well. The best suggesthon I can think of now is Bernie
Davis, whom you must have met at the Congresses, and who will now be
Professor of Pharmacology, New York University School of Medicine, 477 First
Avenue, New York 16. But if you have a better acquahi&ance, let me know.
At any rate, I will leave any message for you with Bernie. Another problem
may be a place for you #0 stay in N.Y., especially if your wife is with you.
IT am sure you would find it more comfortable to borrow somsone's apartment
than to have to go to a hotel. As several people may be away from New York
at that time, this should not be difficult. I will look into this, but please
tell ma if you have made any moves in this direction yourself.

As to our own plans, we will be leaving Madison in about a month, first to
go to a symposium (i.e. summer lecture course) on microbial adaptation at
Ann Arbor Michigan [July 20 - 27] and then to Woods Hole for the month of
August + a few days. Our addresses will be, respectively, c/o Dept. Bacteriology,
University of Michigan and c/o Marine Biological Laboratory (or just M.B.L.),
Woods Hole, Mass. If you can arrange it, I think you would enjoy a day or two
at Woods Hole very much, especially as there will be a number of microbial
geneticists there at the time (Sonneborn, Moewus, Ephrussi's, Atwood, probably
Luria, Sager and others). But we will probably drive back through New York
in any even$. Probably we would have to start back to Madison by not later
than September 6 or 7, preferably a few days earlier. K4/%4/t¢ It would be
wise for you to obtain an Intemnational driver's licence (though this is not
officially recognized as such in the U.S.) or similar credentials, just"in case",

As to the book, I frankly have not had the time or energpfespecially in the
recent hot waather) to give mich more thought to it. The chief pitfall would be
to make too ambitious a plan, but it is a little hard to see how we can really
discuss it in enough detail by mail. I have a longstanding commitment with Son-
neborn for a really comprehensive book on the whole Sield of microbial genetics,

and this is one reason for the summer together at Woods Hole, but this will be
such a different ani long-term affair that I forsee no conflict. why initial
*including
enzym. adapt.

feeling was that our paper for the Rome congress came out very well, but that
many things had to be condensed or omitted for lack of space. Something of 100
or 150 pages should be quite adequate, and I had in mind something modelled after
the Methuen books, like Albert's Selective Toxicity. Although they would be the
largest audience, and would have to be considered, a book for physicians on
elementals would be insufferably dull to the writers and most readers. But we
have here a model of biological, even evolutionary adaptation that could make
for an exciting theme. Perhaps it would be a mistake to circumscribe the limits
too soon, but we should be prepared to withhold any chapters that prove to be
irrelevant. I would rather see, also, a completely thorough treatment of a few

feptes than a superficial skinming of a great many (like Catcheside's and Braun's
texts).

Some comments on the outline you sent some time ago. I agree som summary
ami comment on specific drugs ani their action will be essential (if only for
our own understanding) but it would be foolish for us to appear asaauthorities
in this field. There are, moreover, numerous works on this aspect (Work&Work;
Albert; Woolley; Gustav Martin; and straight pharmacologies). Too much of this
would lose the adaptation theme. I think we could well begin, after an intro-
duction on mechaniams on drug action (of 10~15 pp.) with an account of species and
individual idiosyncrasies in response to drugs, starting with man and down through
microbes. This could then be used to introddce the genetic basis of such individuality
on the ons hand, and ths role of mutatdon and selection on the other.

Next would be an account of adaptive mechanisms. First would be the responses
of the individusal— tolerance (even addiction) to drugs (e.g. morphine) and the
"training" even of isolated nerve-mscie prepns. to acetyl-choline, efc¥ Second would
be th populationgal responses, in the laboratory, which are the foundations of
our theory of drug resistance.

Then would be the ecological effect of drugs on a larger scale, primarily in
re bacterial resistance, but there should be some comment on insecticides and
herbicides. (Jim Crow and KP Link, both on campus, know as mich as anyone about
wey and rodenticides, resp., and should ba able to help round us out on
this).

Some comment will be needed on direct genetis effects, as you indicate in
your Pt, 3. I am mere dubious of 4 and 5, but so little is actually known that
the saying should not take too much space. The part on which I shall have to do
the most reading will be the ecological: there is at once too little and too much
on the actual incidence and significance of resistance in clinical practice.

We might’ perhaps close with a speculative foresight on the future prespeets
of the race of chemotherapy vs, adaptation.

I do not, in fact, plan to do much writing on this until we have had ample oppor-
tunity to discuss all the issues, and it might be fruitless to do much more than
a fairly detailed outline ani division of labor during your visit. But we shall see.
I anticipate some problems already: is serotherepy (and adaptation to it!) within
our scope?

You will be interested, and I hope as pleased as the rest of us, at the news
that Sewall Wright, retiring from the University of Chicago, is joining our
departgent in Septegber in a special chair (L.J. Cole Professor of Genetics).
The further new implied by the form of signature below is of lesser importa

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics