August 8, 1965

Dr. R. Sargent Shriver
Sulte 306

1413 K Street, NW.
Washington 5 0.¢.

Dear Sarge,

We have been planning to prepare a formal report and will do so as soon

as we can. | certainly regard this as one of my principal responsibilities
In the Kennedy Laboratorles and ! hope you will let me know of any date we
should plan on for such reports that would be most convenient for you. |
had thought of October | to cover the period of the previous academic year
(September 1).

In general, things are progressing well, as best they can until! the new =
labs are constructed. We still have to wait for some formal clearances rhe
from NIH before the plans can go out to bid: They are just about ready —
for this. I will ask Lyle Cook to include a more authoritative report. _

Guy McKann is working out very well Indeed, In several roles Including on
some very Interesting research on sulfur-contalning lipids which are SY
important In congenital diseases of brain development, as well as the —~—L

clinical work In mental retardation.

Our neuroblochemistry work Is well under way, under our NIH grant. ~
Dr. Shooter has started his work in London, for this year. Or. Herbert aN
Posner from NIH/St. Ellzabeths on a visiting fellowship, is in charge of

the laboratory here and has started fractionating the structural proteins
of brain.

In another direction, we have worked out a very close relationship with

George Tarjan at Pomona, and with the cther California Institutions on the
the analysis of statistics on the patients. We are developing a technique —
of rapid computer analysis of such data. It will illustrate the point if SS
tl mention that § am sending a programmer this week to Berkeley to put the
basic file of the 1959 perinatal morbidity sample study on one reel of

magnetic tape to take the place of 40,000 punch cards which Is the only

format they have so far been on. The substantive problem of greatest

interest Is to look for signs that might be useful in predicting mongol ism .

to do this we also need good contro! data on fertility of matched popula-
tions.
Dr. R. Sargent Shriver 2 August 8, 1963

| had mentioned some problems | had In getting useful Information fron

the U.S. Census and other offices. Actually Census nas proved to be most
cooperative, constructive and knowledgeable. lt is very expensive (like
$30,000 for specific tabulation) to get answers to new questions, but

they have also furnished a 1/1000 population sample tape which we explore
thoroughly while waiting for some NIH funds and before making any deeper
commitments. The National Office of Vital Statistics is probably just

@s anxious to be helpful to outside research, but | have an impression

they are just too overburdened to give much time for it and | have actually
gotten very little out of thea, 1 am rather shocked altogetier how primi-
tive the records on mental retardation are, even for most state institutions,
but some progress {is visible.

| am sorry not to have persuaded you about the medical Student scholarship
even though we are momentarily under tess pressure on account of sauce AW
arrangements with Nitti after about 25 exchanges of correspondence about
tuese Stanford educational and medical researcn programs. in spite of
your concern about students not permanently dedicating tienselves to
mental retardation, the scholarsnip would, at very little cost, have
dramatized the field in a very worthwhile way. But | will accept your
conclusion now as final.

! an quite delighted to be in touch with you; you are understandably a
bit nard to get noid of yourself. Except for the first week In September,
1 plan to be available right here for the foreseeable future and would
welcome an offician visit, or an unofficial one, at any time,

i hope your guerry about my health is just good will and not some grand-
Jess rumor perhaps provoked by my having (purposefully and painfully)
taken off unnecessary welght. Thank you for asking - | have never felt
better tut it would be better still if Mr. Kennedy and Congress and NIH
and the other agencies could work out some sensible way to handle support
of universities and research. This might let people like me think more
about science and less about now to finance it which, if | may say so,
takes an unreasonable part of my tine.

With Lest wisnes,

AS ever,

Joshua Lederberg
Director

Jisas