RESEARCH FACILITY FOR NUCLEIC ACIDS
INSTITUTE FOR CHEMICAL RESEARCH
KYOIO UNIVERSITY
Uji,Kyoto-Fu 611,Japan

 

June 1, 1987

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue

New York, New York 10021-6399
U.S.A.

Dear Dr. Lederberg

How can I thank you enough for your heartfelt letter? I was so
touched to receive a letter from you who were not only the professor
that my father respected most as the greatest scientist in the world,
but also my admiration since I began to study molecular biology.

I entered the post graduate school of Kyoto University 2 years
ago,and started to study in the laboratory of Professor Mituru Takanami
who had once worked with my father when they had decided the sequence of
"OriC". My direct guidance adviser is his assistant professor Dr. Tatsuo
Takeya who has been a post doc at Rockefeller University in the
laboratory of Professor H.Hanafussa several years before.So, I started
to study on "the changing on gene expression that occur when cell become
malignant". During the past 2 years I made up a cDNA library, and by way
of differential hybridization I picked up clones (that I think were)
specific for transformation. Owing to this, I could received my master
degree last march. (You can not imagine how I would like to tell this
news to my father). Now, I am in my first year of doctor course, and I
continue the analysis of the clones. I hope that this work will bring me
the doctor degree in 3 years. After that? In Japan,sociaty is very
conservative ,and it is very difficult for a woman to get a post, so lI
think I will have to go as a post doc in USA or in France(I am bilingal
in French and Japanese). It was abroad that my father distinguished
himself and made a mark in the world of molecular genetics. So I will
try also my chance.

A thousand thanks to you for remembering me and I hope you wil]
accept my heartiest good wishes.

Fondly yours
Toshiba Neola /

Yoshiko Hirota