May 17, 1943
Dr. Frank Blair Hanson
The Rockefeller Foundation
49 West 49th Street
New York, New York
Dear Dr. Hanson:
Your letter of May 7, in which you ask that I revise our request to the Rockefeller
Foundation for additional support for our work in immune-chemistry during the coming
year, has raised several questions which cause me concern. I am writing this informal
letter to you in order that I may get additional information, to clarify my thoughts.
The requested revision is given in the accompanying letter.
I. You have said that you would like to have our best estimates as to what funds
– in addition to the $11,000 already available – we would need for a strong attack
upon the problem of the production of artificial antibodies, and earlier in your letter
you mentioned that the question in which you are primarily or even solely concerned
is the production of artificial antibodies. Of our work in immunochemistry as a whole,
I have thought and now think that the work on artificial antibodies represents only
a minor part. My 1940 paper on “The Structure and Process of Formation of Antibodies”,
which led to our experimental work in immunochemistry, mentioned the possibility of
production of artificial antibodies in three sentences, and in our application to
The Rockefeller Foundation in 1941 for a grant of $11,000 a year for three years this
was given only minor emphasis. Other experiments which we have carried on and are
carrying on are, I believe, of much greater scientific interest, because of their
easier theoretical interpretation. The manufacture of artificial antibodies is, of
course, interesting in itself and especially so because of the possibility of practical
application.
I accordingly ask now if you do not think that we are justified in considering that
the grant of $11,000 a year does not relate primarily or solely to the production
of artificial antibodies.
II. Let me recall the circumstances attending the additional grant of $20,000 for
work on artificial antibodies during the present year. Because of the possibility
that our artificial antibodies might be of practical value, arrangements were being
made a year ago with the Committee on Medical Research whereby a contract for $20,000
would be given the California Institute of Technology for the study of artificial
antibodies, and especially their ability to protect animals against disease, during
the year 1942-1943. When I learned that The Rockefeller Foundation might prefer to
support this extended project, I withdrew the application to the Committee on Medical
Research and submitted it instead to The Rockefeller Foundation. The work on this
project during the past eight months has proceeded reasonably well. We have been hampered
by difficulties in getting equipment, due to wartime restrictions. We have been having
especial difficulties with the supply of animals; our own facilities have not yet
been built up to a satisfactory state, and a few months ago the animal supply houses
available to became unable to fill our orders. The present state of our results is
that the artificial antibodies which we make, and which show some of the properties
of animal antibodies, cannot yet be said to have or not to have the power of protecting
animals against disease to a sufficient extent to give them possible practical value.
The mouse protection tests which have been made show that none of the preparations
of artificial antibody made by the various methods tried so far have protective power
comparable with natural antibody against Type 1 pneumonia. The preparations of the
artificial antibody which give the precipitation reaction with Type 1 polysaccharide
show, however, a small but definite protection. We have made a great many experiments,
changing the numerous variables involved, in the effort to increase the protective
action until it approaches that of animal antibody. In addition, all the needed facilities
have now been obtained to carry out neutralization tests with diphtheria antitoxin,
and this work is just being begun.
The mouse protection tests which have been made show that none of the preparations
of artificial antibody made by the various methods tried so far have protective power
comparable with natural antibody against Type 1 pneumonia. The preparations of the
artificial antibody which give the precipitation reaction with Type 1 polysaccharide
show, however, a small but definite protection. We have made a great many experiments,
changing the numerous variables involved, in the effort to increase the protective
action until it approaches that of animal antibody. In addition, all the needed facilities
have now been obtained to carry out neutralization tests with diphtheria antitoxin,
and this work is just being begun.
III. I am not sure that I understand the fourth paragraph in your letter, in which
you say that if the manufacture of antibodies in vitro were unequivocally demonstrated,
this would open up such vistas for research that support from many sources would be
available. Influenced in part by your letter of last year, we have not expected that
the California Institute would profit from the possible commercial developments of
any discoveries made here in this field, and in particular we have not accepted help
from commercial firms. The only exception which has been made to this is that we have
accepted gifts of small amounts of materials from three different pharmaceutical houses.
Also, as mentioned above, we have not accepted financial aid for this work from the
Committee on Medical Research, whose interest in it led to its expansion this year.
Are we to understand that you now recommend that we consider the possibility of commercial
support of our work? I myself do not look upon this idea with favor – I am interested
in fundamental scientific studies, of the sort which do not ordinarily attract the
support of commercial firms, and I would not like to be influenced in charting my
research program by commercial considerations.
IV. When I recommended to the California Institute that Dr. Dan H. Campbell be appointed
Assistant Professor of Immunochemistry, I did not know that The Rockefeller Foundation
would object to the change of title from that mentioned in my application, Research
Fellow. We fully understand that The Rockefeller Foundation has assumed no responsibility
whatever for our work in immunochemistry beyond the termination of the period of the
grant. If you feel that it is not proper for Professor Campbell’s salary to be paid
from The Rockefeller grant, please let me know at once, and I shall begin at once
to arrange for another source of funds to cover his salary.
V. Let me say that I have thought of our immunochemical program as being much more
than merely an effort to manufacture artificial antibodies, more even than a fundamental
research program in immunochemistry – I consider it to be an effort to introduce a
new point of view into the research in immunology. A few months ago we had at the
California Institute an enthusiastic group of nearly twenty young men devoting all
or part of their time to immunological research, carrying on experiments which in
part embody new ideas (the group is somewhat smaller now). I have been pleasantly
surprised to see how great the interest of our graduate students in chemistry is in
this new field in which we have begun work; the majority of the men majoring in organic
chemistry have been choosing immunochemistry as their minor subject. I think that
we may expect that some valuable contributions to science will result from the inculcation
of an interest in immunology in these young men who are well trained in chemistry.
VI. While recognizing that The Rockefeller Foundation has no obligation to continue
its support of our work after 1944, I have thought it possible that our contributions
to the field of immunochemistry during the period of the present grant might be considered
of sufficient importance, and the promise of more results sufficiently apparent, that
The Rockefeller Foundation would be interested in enabling us to continue the work
beyond 1944. Our decision as to whether or not to make application to your Foundation
need not be made for another year, and I mention the matter now only because of its
relation to the suggestion that The Foundation might prefer to withdraw from the project
if it could command other support.
Sincerely yours,
Linus Pauling
