FEDERAL SECURITY AGENCY
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

 

IN REPLYING, ADDRESS THE

USPHS Tbe. Research Lab.
411 Bact 69th Street
New York ui, he Ye Nove ll, 1952

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
The University of Wisconsin
Madison 6, Wisconsin

Dear Joshua,

As you may gather from this letter, Norton Zinder proved to be a success-
ful salesman yesterday. I have long delayed answering your last letter
since I couldn't decide whether the advantages of familiarizing myself
with transduction experiments would outweigh the disadvantages of having
to take time offfrom other matters. Norton explained to me that all you
were really asking was that I determine a few growth requirements; and
on rereading your letter I see that 1 should have understood this. I'll
be glad to do such tests and_shall write Plough as soon as I've had

a chance to read his paper. Incidentally, I think it would be entirely
proper and not difficult for you to approach Plough on this matter your-
self. J am hardly gifted with an excess of tact, and my success in my
recent business with him was due simply to accepting a pemam piece of
advise from Szilard who happened to be around at the time. When Plough
angrily denied my statement that his results must have been in error

I planned to write him a letter offering the alternatives of retesting
the material and publishing a retraction or having me publish a note on
my failure to confirm his results. Szilard pointed out that such an
ultimatum would only increase his resistance and if he was an honest man
all that was necessary was to give him enough time for cooling off.

AS you see Szilard was right and 1 learned a good deal.

I agree entirely with your remarks on matters of terminology and I am
pleased that you are willing to accept "meiotroph". I particularly

agree that prototroph may end up as a rather unnecessary word since

the arbitrary position occupied by a given wild type on a scale or grid

of nutritional requirements is of little genetic interest. “fF don't find
myself, in a first response, very enthusiastic about the notion of dropping
all the words based on "troph" in favor of words based on synthesis.

The nutritional requirement is the operational fact with which we work,
and 1 think there may even be some advantage in keeping the terminology
close to the operations ~ and certainly not enough disadvantage to justify
casting off a well-established terminology.

Best regards to Esther

Sincerely,

Pores