In this letter Crick gave an overview of ongoing work in his and Sydney Brenner's laboratory, and mentioned his transition
from studies on nucleic acids and protein synthesis to embryology.
Number of Image Pages:
2 (124,883 Bytes)
Date:
1968-11-14 (November 14, 1968)
Creator:
Crick, Francis
Recipient:
Khorana, H. Gobind
Source:
Original Repository: Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
I was delighted to receive your letter. You can imagine how happy we all were when the news of this year's prize reached
us. I was at the cottage at the time but my secretary telephoned me immediately to tell ma the good news. I am sure you
will have a wonderful time in Stockholm. Everyone does their best to make you feel at home and the Royal Family are very
easy to get on with. There is inevitably a certain amount of formality but even that can be quite fun if you take it in the
right spirit.
You are certainly getting on very fast with the synthesis of the alanine-tRNA gene. It would be most fascinating to see how
it all works out. I very much hope that we shall be able to meet some time during the winter but I must tell you that I am
not very keen to come to Madison on this trip. If I came at all it would have to be right at the end of January or during
the last week of February and these are both terrible times for travelling. If I possibly can I shall go south to avoid the
dislocation so often caused by snow and bad weather.
Sydney is now deep in work on the nematodes and the genetic mapping of his behavioral mutants has gone very wall indeed.
Tony Stratton is hard at work on the neuro-anatomy and neuro-physiology of ascaris. The new extension to our lab should be
ready some time in January and we have no less than five new people coming during the remainder of the academic year who are
likely to take part in new work. I am trying as hard as I can to read up about embryology and the nervous system and I have
been finding it impossible to keep in detailed touch with all the work on nucleic acids and protein synthesis. So I don't
think under the circumstances that it would be sensible for me to take time off to come to talk to your group at Madison.
But I do hope very much that you will be able to get out to La Jolla.
Our Annual Committee Meetings take place on the weekend around the 8th February so that would not be a good time to come.
I have to be in Stanford for a week, starting on Monday the 17th February. I don't know exactly when I will arrive at
La Jolla but I expect I shall be there by Monday the 3rd. So, any time between the 3rd and the 14th would be suitable except
for the weekend of the 8th and 9th. If you want to fix a precise date as early as this I suggest you ring Leslie telling
him the details of my plans which I have just given you.
Letter from H. Gobind Khorana to Francis Crick (November 8, 1968) 
