August 19, 1960

John H. Talbott, M.D.
Edltor, The Journal of the
American Medical Association
5% North Dearborn Street
Chicago 10, fllinois

Dear Doctor Talbott:

  I hdve been thinking &bout your letter of June 29th but must
apologize for not heving acknauledged it sooner.

  I certainly agree with you about the importance of bringing
recent progress in genetics to the ctttention of the medicdl
profession.  What I am icss certain of is the best wns of doing
this.  It is hard to know what one could effectively dccanplish
by a few brief articles.  However, there have been some efforts
alone these i i nes cl 1 reedy, for example, in Scope though I suspect
they my serve better to el i ci t interest thorn to inform.    *

  We are just getting our own new teaching program underway and
this would not be d propitious tlmo for me to eccept a commitment
to do more writing in this field.  In any cxse, f suspect thcit
there may be some others who are rather closer to the problems of
applied genetics in which your professional rmders would be most
immediately interested -- for example, Arno Flotulsky dt Sekittle,
Jim Neal et Ann Arbor end James Crow at Madison. However, I ctm
really not trying to shuck off the problem altogothsr and I will
be thinking about it during the next severe1 months.  If I &fl
furnish any more constructive suggestions, I will hasten to do so.

Thank you for call lng on m.

Yours sincerely,

Jt/Jh

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics