THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

      BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 21218

DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY

23 February 1989

Dr. Bernard D. Davis
National Institutes of Health
Bld. 16 Room 207
Department of Health and Human Services
Bethesda, MD 20892

Dear Bernie:

   Thank you for your letter of February 13 regarding the current situation in
Congress and, indeed, throughout the public nationally.  Most scientists doing
research take for granted that errors in interpretation and judgment are almost
always picked up by the work of others later on and that such errors are, in a
sense, automatically corrected.  I share with you the worry about the "mad
scientists" image that so many people are beginning to accept.

   In connection with your request for "my biggest error in research," I do
indeed have one rather amusing example from my own scientific background. I
enclose a photocopy of the paper published back in 1955, and it seems ideal for
your purposes since it contains as authors the names of individuals such as
Linderstrdm-Lang, Schellman,Harrington, etc., generally considered to be moderately
honest folk.  This paper purports to demonstrate that the activity of ribonuclease
is essentially independent of hydrogen bonds since the enzyme digested both RNA and
a synthetic substrate at the same rate in the presence or absence of urea.   The
summarizing statement at the end of this short note gives our interpretation at
the time.  A few years later while Michael Sela was visiting my laboratory at the
NIH, we found that the three-dimensional structure of ribonuclease, although
enormously disorganized by 8 mol urea, was snapped back into essentially native
shape by the addition of certain polyanions and, certainly, by RNA itself.   Thus
the stabilization of the three-dimensional structure by hydrogen bonds was restored
in the presence of the substrate and other polyanionic materials, and the original
conclusion was therefore entirely incorrect.  One could term the earlier conclusions
"misinterpretation" or even "professional naivete";  however the name of Kai
Linderstrdm-Lang in the author list would safely rule out such appraisal.  The same
would, I think, apply to the term, "fraudulence." Mistakes are made all the time


Dr. Bernard B. Davis
National Institutes of Health

Page Two
23 February 1989

but most of them seem to be corrected eventually.

   As far as a paragraph for your collection, I would think that the second page
of this small reprint beginning with, "All the data" and ending with the list of
authors might be enough to serve Barbara Culliton's purposes.

Best regards.  Hope to see you soon.

Sincerely,

Chris&??Anfinsen

CBA:djh

Enclosure