April 10, 1952

Dr. Jose Luis Ootet
Callao 545 (6° piso
Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Dear Reissig:

My wife and I certainly do remember meeting you at PG, and are pleased
to hear from you again.

I have passed on to the publisher your suggestion that they send a copy
of Microbial Genetics to you for review. It will have to be up to them
to act on your request.

Unfortunately, I no longer have any reprints of Ryan and Lederberg 1946,
excent perhaps for a defective copy. Have you consulted Ryan himself? I
will shortly send you copies of the others, as available.

As to L-forms, whereas they are still an important question, we now
are very doubtful of their connection with genetic transfer in Salmonella.
I enclose an abstract of our recent work. It appears most likely now that
the "FA" particles are actually phage particles, which carry over, so to
speak, fragnaents of the genette material from the cells which they have
lysed to other cells in which they become lysogenic. The phage appears
to act only as a vehicle, and is not htself to be considered as genetic
material of the bacterium.

I am pleased to hear of your association with the biochemical institute
of Fundacion Campomar, Leloir and his colleagues have made very impressive
contributions, and he has long since expressed his interest in genetic
approaches to biochemical problems.

Sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Associate Professor of Genetics