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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS JAMES F. CROW
MADISON, WI 53706 608-263-4438

March 19, 1988

Dr. Joshua Lederberg, President
The Rockefeller University

1230 York Avenue

New York, NY 10021-6399

Dear Josh:

A belated answer to your letter of February 22, with the usual apology
for not getting my act together.

Yes, an article on replica plating would certainly be in order. We have
already filled 1988, but some time in 1989 would be fine. So the earliest
deadline would be some time in, say, October.

Your letter unleashed a flood of memories. | vividly remember a
conversation about indirect selection in which | suggested (perhaps in
answer to a question from you) a reference to Lush’s textbook in which
performance of relatives is taken into account in selection.

Something else that | surely must have told you, but may not have, is
this. Before meeting you or coming to Wisconsin | played with the
distribution of mutants in a growing culture, a problem inspired by the
Luria-Delbrick paper and later solved by Lea and Coulson. I! got nowhere
with it, but | raised the question with R. A. Fisher in Raleigh, N. C., during
the summer of 1946. He sat and thought for what seemed like 5 minutes, but
was probaly only one or two, and then wrote a generating function on a scrap
of paper. He said “try this". Not understanding generating functions very
well, and not wanting to display my ignorance, | thanked him and left.
Months later, after learning about generating functions, | couldn't find the
scrap of paper in my files. 50, unless the scrap of paper shows up, we'll
never know whether Fisher was the first to solve the problem.

| enjoyed your piece on the search for life on the moon and other planets
in the recent Journal of Genetics. Also, what you had to say about
privitising NIH in the NY Times.
-2?-

So far, | have made no progress whatsoever in finding the archives that
would answer the questions about your applications and program
statements. But I hasten to add that the search so far has not taken me
outside the Genetics Department. | have calls in to the Graduate School and
to the College of Agriculture and will write again when I get the information.

{ am writing this at home, with Ann about 6 feet away at another desk.
she sends her fondest greetings. So do |.

All the best.

Sincerely,

P.S. Are all the “blotting” techniques direct derivatives of the replica plate
method?