October 5, 1971

Dr. Torbjurn Caspersson

Institute for Medical Cell Research
and Genetics

Medical Nobel Institutet

8-104 O01 Stockholm, 60, Sweden

Dear Torbjiérn,

It has been most gratifying to see the rapid pace of advance
in human chromosome studies which has had such an important impetus
from your own work, The symposium that you mention in your letter of
October 1 appears to be very timely and indeed indispensable as a mean
of furthering the orderly development of the field, I am very pleased
that you thought of me to take a role in this symposium despite ay
having made no concrete contributions to the subject and I would
certainly like to be as helpful as possible.

Unfortunately, this will be a difficult year in which to
contemplate such a trip on my part as I am already somewhat over-
committed in general and the months of May and June 1972 are
particularly burdened with conflicting responsibilities, However,

I would urge you not to mutate your schedule on my account since

my participation at other times would be at best problematical and
would hardly justify your taking such trouble. If under other pressures
you should alter the proposed date of the meeting please then do let
me know and I will then see if I can offer a reasonable probability

of my participation. s

My hesitancy has no element of modesty, for I do have some
difficulty in nominating a surrogate to do precisely what I think
you had in mind for my own function. However, I would urge you to
give serious consideration either to Luca Cavalli-Sforza (who is now
a Professor in this department) or to Walter Bodmer (who is now at
Oxford). Their recent monograph "The Genetics of Human Populations" just
published by Freeman and Co. is encyclopedic testimony to the breadth
of their perspective on human genetics, As I am sure you already weéld
appreciate Cavalli would undoubtedly offer a somewhat broader overview;
Bodmer has had some more explicit experience with chromosome classification.

I wish I could also be as specific in recommending names to you
for some other areas, for example the pattern analysis of chromosome
structure on the computer. With the detail of information now becoming
available systematic mathematical approaches will be absolutely
essential, but despite a great noise on such questions from work in
this country I do not know what to suggest that would go beyond the
contributions of your own group. However, thie is not a well informed
judgement and is certainly on a subject that deserves further inquiry.

over
Dr. Torbjdrn Caspersson -2- 10/5/71

Another group that might be overlooked on first consideration
consists of the Drosophila cytogeneticists whose experience in
exploiting the salivary gland cell chromosomes might offer some
useful precedente, That tradition is unfortunately almost completely
interrupted but one might still quail upon such people as Ed Lewis
at Cal Tech. I am sure you will already have thought of encouraging
the application of these techniques to the mapping of mouse
chromosomes and perhaps one should also think of their potential
role in the genetics of economic life-stock. In fact, as I re-
read your letter it is obvious that you have already thought about
all of these questions.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

Ju/rr