Marine Biological Laboratory,
Woods Hole, Mass.
29th June 1955.

Dr J. Lederberg,
Department of Genetics,
University of Wisconsin,
Madison, Wis.

Dear Josh,

Yes, the Sussmen did look us up, and we were certainly delighted
to meet them at long last, having admired their work from afar for
so long. We talked a blue streak, and I got a number of good ideas
to try out if I ever get a chance to work with flegella and mating
again. I hope I shall: application to the P.H. people went in
yesterday.

You are undoubtedly familiar with Kallio's work on desmids:
Bull. Torrey Botan. Club 80:247-63 (1953) is a fairly recent
paper of his. I saw a number of his strains here last week, when
Dick Starr was demonstrating them to the class: very pretty, too.
Apart from that, I can't think of any alga that fits your recuirements.
Of course, in multicellular forms the apical cell nearly always
divides unequally: Sphacelaria or Chara provide simple examples
of this. "Cap-cells" in Oedogonium (F.E. Fritsch, "Structure &
Reproduction of the Algae", Vol. I, p.300) are a less speciclized
example of the same sort of thing. I think Caspari has been
misling you somewhat on the subject of Scenedesmus: the cells
divide essentially as in Chlorella, but stay in 4 or 8-celled
colonies until the next division.

As for the diatoms, you might look at Weidling, S. (1948),
Bot. Notiser 3:322-54, "Beitraege zur Kenntnis der vegetativen
Vermehrung der Diatomeen", though I don't think it'll help you
much. Some diatoms decrease steadily in size, owing to the lid-
and-dish effect with which you are doubtless familiar: but I feel
this is just a mechanical effect of the inelasticity of the frustule,
and my co-worker is of the opinion that, within the wall, cell
division is pretty equal. Almost all of her 50-odd strains have
shrunk since they were isolated. Navicula pelliculosa appears
to be an exception, since it is girt with only the slightest of
girdles: the halves of the Petri dish don't overlap, so it keeps
8u x 3y for years and years. Hence the advantage of working with
this species. /

Maurice told us of your wonderful success in getting becteria
to mate sub oleo - in flagrante delicto. Congratulations! Maybe
that's a good bug to work with, too.

 

\

Tales reach us that F.M. may be going to Germany, or coming
here for six months, or going to Florida. Hm. Dick Starr and
I were looking forward to taking part in a symposium on the
genetics of algae at East Lansing: but when we got a copy of the
projected programme and saw that one of the other invited speakers
was someone who might be calculated to reduce the high level of
the symposium in public esteem, we regretfully hed to withdraw
our names and titles. We cabled Ruth Sager, for information: I
wonder if she took similar action.
“Ww

C

The job situation is as nebulous as ever. Teaas is
off, definitely: they didn't manage to raise the funds from
the State legislature. Columbia is off, too: Ewing didn't
get the Rockefeller grant. I've heard nothing from Brandeis
for months. Now we've got the wild idea that we may be able
to raise funds and stay here for a while: it would certainly

be wonderful.
We've been just revelling in the atmosphere of academic
biology again, after having been away from it so long. I

don't think there's any point in telling you whom we've met
already - people drop into this lab almost hourly.

Joyce has gone home to prepare nutrient media for the
Lewins, but she would have sent her love.

All the best.

Yours,

ys

Ralph A. Lewin.

Recorder session with the Grobsteins tomorrow evening.

 

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N. PELLICUL OSA