July 2, 1968

Dr. Torbjorn Casperason

Institute for Medical Cell Research and Genetics
Medical Nobel Institute

Karolinaka Institutet

Stockholm 60, Sweden

Dear Torbjorn:
I was very sorry to have missed you when you did call in at my office.

To answer your letter of June 20, let me say first of all that I am very
much interested both in the activities of SIPRI and in the specific problem
of microbial detection. I am rather skeptical that detection devices will
play very much of a role in biological warfare until they can cope with the
identification of idolated virus particles. However, with the rapid increase
of expertise in nucleic acid replication systems, this may not be completely
out of the question within a few years.

Nevertheless, I am very happy to have a chance to meet Mr. Lundin. I believe
that Elliott Levinthal already has met him. Elliott is out of town this
month, but I have no hesitation in replying on behalf of both of us that we
will be very happy to see Mr. Lundin while he is here in September. However,
as I have already written to Lundin, the end of week of September 9th is
somewhat problematical for me, and while I think I could still be fairly sure
of being here, it would be very much more convenient if he could schedule
some day, any day, earlier in that week.

Let me in fact make a further counter suggestion that may not be totally
irrelevant to the purposes of his travel: that is, that he enroll in the
course on computation for biological research; the details are enclosed.
Please however, disregard any of the deadlines that are mentioned there. The
reason for this ia that I assume that his travel expense is already covered
in any case, and he would not require a stipend from the UNESCO sponsors.

Let me also press upon you a couple of other writings that bear on SIPRI
activities. I would enjoy it very much if we could have a leisurely oppor-
tunity some time to discuss these msttera in greater detail. Until then,

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

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