M.R,C. Unit

5 March 1958

Dear Jim,

postcards. Thank youfor your two letters to say nothin? ;~,~~
         Let me answer the second letter first,
certainly like to oome for the spring term next year as a visiting
Professor in the Chemistry Department.   f have discussed it with
Paul, Odile and Max, and though Max has minor reservations, and
though naturally the M.R.C. will have to be oonsultedo they are
all in favour,   Next year is especially suitable because we are
not likely to have so many visPtors then.   F?aturally I shall be
prepared to give some lectures,  but we can discuss all that later.
It is really very kind of you to have cooked this up for me,

       We were very pleased to have the acaount of<'the micro-
somal particles, which gave us a much better pieture'of what. you
are up to than the various rumours which had reached USe   I'
passed it on to Xeaen, who is actively engaged on the sample you
sent him,,   He tells me that he will be writing to you about his
preliminary findings in a day or so,                                          I\.,
    As you will have heard Sydney has relatively:pure  `2
sheaths, and George and Sewell think they have relatively pure;.'
tail fibres, but the definitive experiment - to show that the h \
locus alters the fingerprint - has yet to be done.  Sydney and \
Bob Horne have shown that the cores have a fine hole, say 20 A
diameter, down their middle,   BBahlon and I, with help from John
_ Smith, are now actively working on the chemistry of the soluble
RNA, but so far our only results are very preliminary.   Seymour
is tackling one of the abnormal haemoglobins as an exercise, I.
Incidentally last week I sent off to Alex a set of good coordinates
for poly A, which we should now try to write up*   We are likely to
have some trouble from Bear and Morgan, but I will write
separately about that.

      Sydney and I visited Maurice last week,   He seems muoh
more cheerful, and appears to be making a much bet$er job of
clearing up DNA.  There was an evening symposium here ,on dsele,
with Weber and both Huxleys, in whioh the Huxley model went over
in a big way. .                                                                    

      You will be amused to hear that in February,I gave three
publier lectures at LC. London on @The IQuoleic Aloidsw'whioh. were
crowded out.  Also that in the evenings we (mainly:Sydney)' have


                                                                           
                  * 2.w                                              h


gfven a short sharp course on simple modern genetics to.Fred
Sanger, Ieben, Maurice Reeoe, Brian Hartley and some of their
students6  We also had a one-day meet%ng with Ponte, Prftohard
and Bob Edgar on.small-distanoe recombination.   After tea
today Paul will give us a talk on Rualeio acid.

      Xmidentally Fred, in collaboration with Bruoe Stocker
is starting to work on the flagella protein from Salmonella, in
the first instance to develop hi&new ideas about amino aoid
sequence detemninafion, but we hopeto slip in a little .genetics
later, though fine mapping looks diffioult.       

                              '.                                                                      
   Sydney has had some newish ideas about &ding, whiuh
we will tel.1 you about when they are a little tidier,   1 have
to give a talk on this subfeot at the end of May in French..in
Paris, so help me.                                                                    
                                                                           .',
     We are,`at'long last, moving into ournew lab, in the
hut, which gives us a little more spaoe, but Mahlon and X wiil
probably have to leave the Molten0 at Easter,
     Qabrielle and 3 have had German Measles, Jacqueline
has mumps, Odile is covered w2th spots of unknown origin but_
otherwise we are alZ'wel1.  We hear news of some of your     ',,
problems,from Belga, '.

                                                                                          /,


                                                                           

                              
             F,.H.C. Crick                         I

       
    ,.



                                 
                                    
,Dr J.D.,Watson,
The Biological Labs.,
Ha'rvard University,'
Cambridge 38,. "
Mass., U.S.A.