se eee

- of filelbourne

wee. “VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA:

Guiversitp

CARLTON, N.3.

  

BACTERIOLOGY DEPARTMENT
13th November, 1958.

Professor Joshua Lederberg,
Department of Medical Genetics,
University of Wisconsin,
Madison 6, Wisconsin,

U. S. A. .

Dear Josh., . |
‘ The news of your sharing the Nobel Prize for
Medicine with Tatum and Beadle was received with the greatest
jubilation here. I send my own personal congratulations to
you and to Esther for this well deserved honour.

Everything is going pretty well here and

Bruce's work in particular. His trip to Toronto was a most, =.
successful one. I am a bit worried about Bob whois ina” —

serious state of depression. It is difficult to probe the © 8
basis of his depressed state, but he admits that he is not: .
interested in his work and finds it difficult to get any 7
interest in the work of others. I think that the syndrom@
is probably attributable to the fact that Mari is in America
and that he has not as yet been able to set up*a hane in
Melbourne. Reluctantly 1 have come to the conclusion that
Bob would not make a suitable lecturer in Microbial Genetics,
as he does not seem to develop any enthusiasm for teaching,
nor any desire to extend his knowledge beyond the narrow
field of yeast genetics. He is rather hampered, I must
confess, by the loss of a number of his yeast cultures and

I understand he has written to you and to Ephrussi for
replacements, I sincerely hope that you can find time to
airmail the cultures he has asked for.

I was at an interesting Seminar a few weeks
ago at the W.E.H.I. discussing clonal selection and your
modification of it. I must confess that in spite of Gus's
recent observations I am deeply suspicious of the validity
of a clonal selection hypothesis.

With best wishes from us all and once more,
our warmest congratulations.

Yours sincerely,