April 24, 1959

Or. Milton C. Winternitz

The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund
33% Cedar Street

New Haven !1, Connecticut

Dear Dr. Winternitz:

This letter is in further support of Dr. Lederberg's request for your
consideration cf support for his program here at Stanford, and is fn
response to Dr. Waters' request for detatled data on the Department
of Genetics. Te following materla!l supplements Dr. Lederberg's and my letters
of February 2h and 25. The portion that Is repetitive is Included here
to round out the picture for you and your Board of Scientific Advisers.

We are hopeful that The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund wil! orovide
support for the Department of Genetics to meet its presently unbudgeted
needs for a perlod of five years. These needs total! $445,000 and are set
forth In the descriptive budget (Enclosure 3). We believe that with
support of approximately $360,000 per year from 1959 through 1964, we can
establish this extremely promising program on a firm and productive
basis. We are atso confident that during this five year period we can
secure permanent financing for the department.

The Department of Genetics was organized earlier this year as a
new unit of the Stanford Unlversity School of Medicine now being
consolidated or the University campus near Palo Alte. The reasons for
removal of the school from San Francisco you and your Board can appreciate
perhaps more fully than most. Basically they relate to our conviction
that the greatest advances in medical knowledge will be made by those
schools which are integral parts of their mother universities and hence
able to draw upon the full resources of the cther university disciplines
The new educational program Is designed to stimulate the academic and
research Interests of the medica! students and much effort will! be directed
toward research activities and the advanced training cf candidates
for the Ph.D. and of post-doctoral fellows. It is our alm to add personne!

to an urgent national need for an Increasad number of teachers and inves-
tigators.

The genetics program at Stanford wil! center in the new department
headed by Professor Lederberg. The discipiine has had a tong and not
undistinguished tradition at Stanford in the Medical School (e.g.
Professor Danforth in Anatomy) and elsewhere (e.9. the now classic studies
of Beadle and Tatum in Blology). Activity in several departments wil!
continue and expand. In his letter of February 24, Or. Lederberg set
forth the rationale of his approach to the subject; the meacrandum on
The Genetics Program at Stanford University (Enclosure !) describes
the program in some detail and relates it to others at Stanford whose
work parallels and contributes to our strength in this area Curricula
vitae on Drs. Nossal and Herzenberg are in Enclosure 2.
The projected membership cf the Genetics faculty Includes:

Professor J. Lederberg (Executive? Bacterial genetics
Professor X ) Transplantation genetics
Instructor Y ) Human genetics

Assistant Professor L. Herzenberg Tissue Cultures

Two or three research associates (for example Dr. E. M. Lederberg
and Gr. G. J. ¥. Nossal) will assist matertally. in addition an
appointment In clinical genetics Is contemplated, probably in
conjuaction with the Department of Pediatrics.

The research program would not be easI!y separable from research-
training. When fully staffed, the Decartment should have altogether from
four to six graduate students and postdoctoral fellows attached directly
to each of Its members, or a total of 20 to 25 ‘trainees’. Special
emphasis wlll be given to attracting candidates with a medical background
(viz. as medical students or medical graduates) into the program; therefore
an additional few part-time appointments for medical students should
be avallable for this purpose. Somewhat over half of the trainee group
wil! be Ph.®. candidates or postdoctoral fellows.

With thr cooperation of other departments, the Genetics Cepartment
will offer a sequence of graduate courses In the spectalties of its
staff, and will offer a Ph.D. In Genetics based on accomplishment in
general biological education, In genetic studies and especially on
advanced research in this fleld. The small size of the department
provides the opportunity, and the diversity of Initial interests of its
trainees the necessity, to create a flexible regimen of preliminary
requirements for the degree, sc that we can accommodate candidates not
only from general biclogy, but alsa from the physical sciences and from
medicine.

The projected 1959-60 operating budget for the Department now totals
about $200,000. Of this, the University Is providing 338,000 for tenure
appointments and general expenses. The balance wil! come from three
research grants totalling 376,000 and a training grant which provides
about 384,000 in its first year, These grants wil!lsupport an adequate
number of research assoclates, technicians and the {ike for existing
staff and will provide for junior Investigators on term appointments.
They do not however, provide the funds necessary for increments and
promotions to tenured positions.

The puppose of the present request is to Support the Initial
growth of the Genetics Department while the Medical School Is consolidating
Its position on the University campus. Flexible funds for equl pment
and ‘risk capital’ are especially important. The existing staff will
need to cal! on these funds to set up and expand their work es laboratory
space is completed. Even more important, they are needed to assure
continuity for the new staff in the interval before their individual
requests for project support can be formulated, justified, reviewed and
pald,
The space presently avallable to the Genetics Department Is being
financed by the University (through gifts) at a budgeted cost of $175,000.
The new space, mentioned fn Enclosure 3, wi!l be similarly financed.

Our goal Is to complete construction of this additional research space
within the next three years.

We are requesting these funds In order to establish the Oepartment
on a secure basis for research and training In genetics. This Is, in
essence, a request for support of a program rather than specific projects.
tt Is one which we consider extremely promising and which we are hopeful
the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund will wish to support.

Yours sincerely,

Robert H. Alway, M.D.
Dean