Churchill College
Cambridge
2 June '62
Dear Josh,
Work on the genetics of vaccinia virus has taken an interesting turn during my absence, and Mary McClain has got something that looks like a "defective" -- it doesn't produce infection virus but recombines with high efficiency.  Vaccinia looks the best animal virus for genetic/chemical study, at the moment, and I am anxious to exploit the situation.  Unfortunately Bill [ . . . ] has taken a position with Eagle, so that I have no biochemist now.
At a recent meeting in London Trantner[?] from Cologne mentioned to me a D (2).  Inman, from Adelaide; - -a physical chemist working with Kornberg at the moment.  I would like to recruit someone who is basically a physical chemist, interested in DNA, to look at the biochemical side of vaccinia multiplication and genetics; I am writing to you to ask you whether you could discuss this possibility with Inman, and let me know what sort of a man he is; if he is attracted to as "biological" a field as animal virology.  If he is interested I will come out to Stanford as I travel home in September -- I expect to leave USA at San Francisco on October 1.
Hope that this isn't an imposition, but it would help us a lot
Best wishes to Esther and yourself
Frank Fenner.