BACTERIAL PHYSIOLOGY UNIT
HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

25 SHATTUCK STREET
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02115
TELEPHONE: (617) 732-2022

 

Oct. Si, 1989.

Dr. Joshua Lederberg,
Rockefeller University,
New York, N. Y.

Dear Josh,

It was nice to see you at the Dubos and the Weitzmann meetings,
and I thank you for the kind remarks on my talk.

Twas very glad to see your NY Acad. Sci. reprint on the origin vo
of antibody specificity. I had not remembered that the Mueller
Lecture was the occasion of such an important statement, and I

Will see that your reprint gets incorporated into appropriate

archives here. If you could send me = additional copies I would

like to forward them to some immunologists who might be

particularly interested: Benacerraf, John David, Eisen.

The reference in your paper to the Monod contribution to the
Henry Ford Symposium reminded me of something else that might lw
appeal to your interest in history. Hoth he and I presented n+
evidence on inducible transport systems there, and it is
perfectly proper that you should refer only to his paper, since eos)
he subsequently expanded his system beautifully, while my >
approach proved to be a dead end. Nevertheless, while I feel (
that I have received more than enough credit for most of my
cantributions, I have always felt bitter that Monod was unwilling
to dilute his credit by ever mentioning my prior discovery -- the
data were limited, but together with the logic I think they made
a solid case for what was then an astounding finding, that a
marphological entity cétld undergo adaptive changes. GI recently
had occasion to write down the story in the enclosed
correspondence with Tom Brock about his book ms. on the history
of bacterial genetics. The covering letter makes some additional
points that will be obscure without his ms., but there are other
points that will interest you. In particular, I hope my

Q) interpretation of the peculiar role of aromatic auxotrophs in the
discavery of transduction is correct.

TT der FH oS,
Cordially,

Pew Davis L
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