UNnrIversity or MINNESOTA ets.

Tue Mepica, Scuoor
MINNEAPOLIS 14

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY AND NEUROLOGY

October 19, 1959

Professor Joshua Lederberg
Department of Medical Genetics
Medical School, Stanford University
Palo Alto, California

Dear Joshs

I received your card after getting back from the meetings, I was unable
to take the family as it turned out, and I wound up fly‘ng directly to Los
Angeles and back,

I am writing this for two reasons: first, to try to get you out to
Minneapolis; and second, to discuss the ideas we talked over when I saw you
at Madison, Our reasons for inviting you tc come to Minneapolis are
two fold: first, we are having a series of seminars on genetics in neurology.
I am sure this is a topic you are not particularly interested in but we can
use it as an excuse for inviting you cut here, paying your transportation,
and we probably will be able to furnish transportation for Esther as well.
This may mean asking Esther to give a brief discussion of some of your work
in order to satisfy the legal requirements of the grants, I have spoken
to Galen Bradley about trying to get you to come, and he has given me some
idea of your problems in scheduling. He has stated that his department would
also be happy to furnish something in the way of financial recompense if you
decide to make such a trip. The formal part of this would consist of giving
a one to two hour discussion on a Thursday evening of any topic you might feel
to be appropriate for a group of neurologists without much background in
genetics, Our informai reasons for inviting you out are several: Frank
Morrell, one of the members of our department, has been working on HNA and
alterations of HNA content of individual nerve cells during conditioning.

He feels that this may be important in tnat he believes he has demcnstrated
changes of RNA content of cells wnich have been conditioned in contrast to
those which have not, and he has been interested in exchanging ideas with you
about this, I have been spending most of my spare time recently working on
cerebrel blcod flow, and I will soon have an article ready of which I shall
send you a copy when I have finished,

The details of the seminars are as follows: They are usually held on the
last Thursday of each month from 7 P.M. to 8 P.M, We could arrange to put you
up for that evening and as many other evenings as you care to spend in Minneapolis
before or after thet time. Our schedule is flexible enough so that if you
are available on any Thursday other than the last Thursday of the month, we
could move our meeting forward or back to make this possible, Our meetings
will run until June, and we could arrange to hear you on any month that you care
to come. If you are at all interested or wish to use this as a means of financing
a trip to Minneapolis for any other reason, we would be happy to take care of
the financial and practical aspects of the trip for both you and Esther,

I thought I should also take care of the brief note which I promised you
in regard to the work we are doing on stereotaxic surgery for the treatment of
abnormal involuntary movements, As you recall. we discussed the problems of
adequate localization of the coagulating needle and the fact that we have been having
-2=
Prof. Joshua Lederberg

complications because the globus pallidus and anterolateral thalamic nucleus
are both located so close to the internal capsule, We have found that lesions
in either of these two areas are useful in controlling both rigidity and tremor
in patients with Parkinsons disease, In discussing this problem with you, you
made the suggestion that there might be a poison which would act specifically
on a nuclear masses without acting on nerve fibers per se. Thus any injection
of this material into one of the nucleii would destroy this nucleus without
damaging the large fiber tracts which are immediately adjacent to it. I have
looked about for poisons of this scrt and have been unable to find any that
would adequately discriminate between ceil body and nerve fiber per se, You
might at least try tossing this idea out at one of ycur brain storming sessions
in Buffalo to see if any one else knows anything that might be applied. Our
own approach has been one of further investigation of electrical stimulation
and we believe this tc be a bit more refined than what we have used in the past,
We are also considering switching the site of our lesions from globus pallidus
to fields of Forel which would consist of a group of fiber tracts rather than a
nuclear mass, This work is coming along slowly but we feel we are making
progress in it.

I have had a few publications since I saw you last. These are pretty
much straight forward studies on changes in the blood vessel alcng the base of
the brain in relation to aging, I haven't sent you any copies as it is pretty
much a straight forward patholcgic study, I will send you the papers we are
working on at present in regard to cerebral blood flow studies with dye dilution
techniques which I think is a bit more original research, I would be happy
to have your comments ebout this when you get it,

Please send my best regards to Esther, The fourth addition to the family
has just arrived (one-half hour ago). This time it's a boy!

Sincerely,
—

}
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A.M.

AMI: es fannone, M.D,