JUL 17 1963

Kazutami Kiyota,
Dept. of Neuropsychiatry,
Kumamoto University
School of Medicine,
483 Honjo-machi, Kumanoto
Professor Joshua Lederberg, Japan. July 13, 1963.
Department of Genetics,
Medical Center, Stanford University,
Palo Alto, California, U.S.A.

Dear Professor Lederberg:

It is just one year since I recieved your letter after
meeting you in Kumamoto. Sorry for not writing sooner.
How are you ? It was a great pleasure for me to know that such
a famous scientist like you was interested in our research field,

We are pursuing our studies on the interaction of psycho-
tropic drugs such as phenothiazine derivatives to the proteins
in subcellular units of the brain tissue. ‘We have recently
separated the chliorpromazine-sensitive protein from the brain
and the liver by the technique of crossing paver electrophoresis.
The extinction of ultraviolet rays in the protein-chlorvromazine
complex separated on paner differs from the extinction in cnlor-
promazine, brain and liver vroteins resvectively. The binding
of such drugs to the brain proteins depends on such conditions as
ionic strength, types of ion, pH and temperature, not only in the
crossing paper electrophoresis but also in the extraction of
proteins from the tissue. I suppose these phenomena might be
based on some denaturation of protein molecules, which is induced
by the binding of the drug to the protein under certain conditions
More basic information of the drug's action on the brain protein,
together with its psychotropic effects seems to illuminate a
highly complex mechanism of the protein molecules which build up
the fine structure of the brain tissue. I think a new avproach
to endogenous factors in endogenous psychosis is expected from
the molecular biological point of view.

I am still looking foward to study with you at the Kennedy
Laboratories for Molecular Medicine which is to be held September,
1964. So, I would like to hear from you on your research program
at the new Laboratories.

Sincerely hoping to hear from you in the near future.

Yours truly.

710 hi N