January 19, 1965

Dr. P. H. Makela

Department of Serology and Bacteriology
University of Helsinkt

Helsinki, Finaadd

Dear Helen:

Thank you for letting me see your manuscript. It is of course a great pleasure
to see this story unfold, even if we have now redirected the research here
completely to the B. subtilis system.

Is there no indication that the expression of V is also conditioned by a
lysogenic conversion?

You probably know what has been going on here from papers in Genetics, J. Mol.
Biol. and PNAS. When we can eventually get around to it, some reprints will

be mailed out too. Gan hae a very interesting project now, the assoctation of
DNA synthesis with a complex of RNA, protein and DNA probably at the cell wall,

Since you were here I have become very much interested in the development of
computers for biological research, since Stanford actually has one of the
world's leading facilities for computer research. There are some complex ques-
tions of strategy and it is rather slow getting this moving—-what a paradox,
considering microsecond operational speeds! So far the main efforts are

rather mathematical and in chemistry rather than biology. If you are especially
interested let me know,and you will also see somethi in the January 1965 PNAS.

Ollie will be amused to learp we also have a rather extensive program in genetic
demography, using the 2 x 10’ records of the U.S. 1960 census (52% sample).

Among other things we certainly will extract what we can on sequence of sexes.
So far we see nothiaggvery clearcut on, e.g., interval between children by sex
of previous child, but have much more to do. Any suggestions (even if they may
seem obvious and of course most of the plan will be obvious) would be welcome.
We have a rather unusual arrangement with the Census Bureau to be able to study
these data diredttty

While you were here I was perhaps just in the transition between working mainly
with my own hands in the lab, and being responsible for a larger group. The
former is much pleasanter in many ways, and it takes some time both to acquire
some efficiency in the second role and to subdue resentments about leaving the
first. One advantage of computation is that (in a sense) the machines can carry
on even while one is interrupted. It takes a lot of thought, but this can he
applied at any time or place. Eventually we will be literally programming the
machines to execute our experiments; it will take a little longer before the
machines will be programming us.

Best wishes,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

vay Hd