MAY 2 3 id

Princeton University DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMICAL SCIENCES
MOFFETT LABORATORIES

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08540

18 May, 1973

Dear Josh:

Nice to hear from you, and I'm much interested in righting some

of the 'wrongs' involved in the rewriting of genetical history.

I fully agree that geneticists at Columbia, from the day start of
my student days there, were not only open-minded, but appropriately
excited about transformation and its implications. The problem was
to find an experimental system which would tie the bacterial
results to classical genetics - at least that was my understanding.

. More specifically, I arrived a bit too late to be of direct help
to you. Harriett had already left, and I hardly knew her. Have you
written to Salome Waelsch, now at Albert Einstein Medical School?
She was a very close friend of Harriett's in those days, and so was
David Perkins. I came to Columbia in the fall of 1945, and by that
time, Rhoades was k#amkikmy including Avery's work in his classical
cytogenetics course. I could dig up my notes on that, if you wish,
but perhaps Marcus could tell you directly when he started teaching
the stuff, and how he felt about it. Barbara McClintock is another
possible contact, since she was on the Columbia staff in some sort
of adjunct capacity. And LCDunn was Harriett's official advisor.

My present situation: I'm on sabbatical ak the Imperial Cancer Research
Lab in London for the year, trying to get mitochondrial (and other)

- cytoplasmic mutations in animal cells. Am very excited and hopeful
about doing cytoplasmic genetics with animal cells in culture, while
continuing parallel experiments with Chlamydomonas. %m Am in the US
at the moment to visit my lab, go to a CSH meeting on animal cells
and marry Arthur Pardee (thus the Princeton letterhead). Am very
happy, working very hard, and feeling great. Would love to see you
any time anywhere. If I canbe of help on this or any other of your
marvelous projects, let me know.

With best regards,

Ruth Sager
Professor of Biological Sciences
at Hunter College

Address till August:
Imperial Cancler Research Fund
Lincoln'd Inn Fields,

London WC 2