DEPARTMENT OF CE
L
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY AND

HARVARD UNIVERSITY fhe

The Biolo i

Biological Laboratorj
16 Divinity Avenue onres

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
The Rockefeller University
New York, N.Y. 10021-6399 21 April 1992

Dear Josh:

Thank for your letter of March 26. I have just returned
from a meeting at l'Institut Pasteur in honor of Francois Jacob, at
which some one pointed out that sex in bacteria was discovered in
America, but it took the French to understand it what it meant!

I certainly do remember the 1946 Cold Spring Harbor
Symposium and your proof of recombination in bacteria. I seem to
recall that there were no slides for your talk and that you were very
young! I had just returned to Colin Macleod's department at NYU
only a few month's before the meeting after spending nearly 2 years
in the Southwest Pacific and I seem to regcall that either Harriet
Taylor (Ephrussi) or Maclyn McCarty gave a paper on transformation
of pneumococcus with DNA which inspired no discussion from the
august body of participents. Finally, I met two Frenchmen for the
first time, named Andre Lwoff and Jacques Monod who I invited to
spend a few days at my country place in Scotland Conn. during which
Andre agreed to save a place for me in his “grenier" at the Institut
Pasteur in 1951-52 when I planned to take sabbatical and my
children would be old enough to learn to speak French the easy way.
At the time I thought I was very cleverin my evaluation of these
men, but by the time I arrived in Paris 4 years later, the new
biologists from all over the world wanted to work there and I was
very lucky indeed to have already made a"reservation".
I have always regarded the 1946 meeting as a turning point in the
history of biology. For the first time the importance of bacterial
genetics became generally recognized, although it was not untll the
Hershey-Chase experiment some 5 years later that the true
significance of DNA as the genetic material was recognized.

With best regards,

* ae am bee deimer Jr.

Professor of Biology, emeritus