COMITATO ORDINATORE
PER IL IX CONGRESSO INTERNAZIONALE DI GENETICA

Segreteria Generale: tstituto di Genetica dell’ Universita
Via Celoria 10 - Milano (Italia)
Milan, 22/4/52

Dear Lederberg;

Jfi domust- apologise for a long | delay before ansWering$
Ishope.the paper .was..sent, to. Genetics, anyhow,so- that there has been-
no-actual delay...f entirely agree. with it and havée® ‘nod objections
except a few. very: mnimportant . ones, I should. for instance suppress:
'W. 11¢8fmaa in. the.lagt-but-one line of page »since | the crosseés were
sactually..¢arried out.with., two. TLB,-S ST straihs which® are,as “far as”
their..origin is concerned, unr elated to. the strain. you’ mention yand
which is: net in.smy.. possession, In the. first lines’ of page f, re Bers
it seems that- selection. for ye vsgstance. to nitrogen ‘mustard: in’ kK 12-
“was; carried.out by Visconti. and. myself, “while I actually cannot char-
ge Visconti with the misa@eed of having obtained HRY ‘and having’ left
it resting for three years; the work with Viscopti. ‘concerned coli B
only. iy work on Hfr was not published, except in the few lines on
the 1950 paper,kmk or in the quotation of C.and H. paper on NCO“C 183;
but a paper was read about it at the 100th meeting of the Genetical
Society of Great Britain at Cambridge, in 1949,carrying the title :
BSAn actively mating strain in E-coli". ,

; Re heading etc., I have written to Fisher, who will
soon be back to Cambridge, whether he thinks I ought to have as hea-
ding of the paper Dept.cf Genetics,Cambridge U. rather than Istituto
Sieroterapico milanese,menticning wark Milan in «he footnote ; I ima-
gine such detail may easily be altered in pwoofs, and shculd prefer
iff possible to leave the question open now.

I wonder if you think that an explanatory sentenge
in the footnote may be useful to help the puzzled reader, who <nows
that we have alwa;vs been some t housand miles apart, by saying that
smmexef the initial observations leading to the facts observed in
this paper were independently wt@isenx nade in kkadison and Cambridge/
/iiilan, and as they were either very close or complementary it was
decided to continue the work in collaboration. Actually, I find this
collaboraturion/extremely stimulating,and well worthw advertssing
exveriment in copperative research.

The first half of this month has been very depres-—
sing,in view of several organipational tasks and a conpte of con-
gresses, plus some family accidents. I had to stop work, practically.
I should be resulting it this week. I have only had time to control
Hfr x TLB, -s and got inthe first experiment 20% Lac+S* reconbinants.
The mixture was aereated for 1 and 1/2 hour. I have started control-
ling whether attenuated Hfr can transduce F+,

Avtually it seems that streptomycin may help a lot
towards observation cf recombinaticn with Hfr. If something turns
 

ADITES Oo I Apa:

ier onlP ase eotercect Ib miieh ocisvens dd goatot

out, L may have. a. good opportunity of baking” a-film ‘of it.

_ - had. news, that Hayes gave a ‘talk’ about the wio&xsstory at: the
Oxford. meeting, and ‘had great” suecess. In his’ ‘last letter. he said: he
would prepare his. paper for J Gil end” of ‘this monthi*l have*sent to. chim
a copy of. your. typescript, and. q hope” he will make” the best usel of its:

I shall. write soon, about all the o!4@° Rfr datas I’ should not like
to delay farther this. letter. Tam ‘sorry: not to de ih a position te
help: you, much. about, the aGh paper. I may be ‘inh’ a better position: when
next, papers. will, come. What about a Sansational title like’ 3 A unique
case of genetic. infection for fertility in “Eveo1ie for ‘the J "paper ?

af Ok

Yours sincerely,

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