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Letter from Linus Pauling to Frank H. Johnson. June 20, 1944.
Pauling writes to suggest a research project for Johnson to be conducted during his time at Caltech. Specifically, Pauling suggests that Johnson study the "effects of hydrostatic pressure on serological reactions" and gives Johnson a brief overview of his group's work on artificial antibodies.

Transcript

June 20, 1944.

Dr. Frank H. Johnson

Department of Biology

Princeton University

Princeton, New Jersey

Dear Dr. Johnson:

I am very pleased to learn that you are planning to spend part of the time on your Guggenheim Fellowship at this Institute. The time from the middle of November to March is just as satisfactory for this purpose as any time will be before the end of the war. We shall be able to provide you with some facilities for experimental work, and you will, of course, also be at liberty to attend lectures in which you are interested and to take part in seminars. Weekly seminars are held in chemistry and biology, and also on such special fields as immunochemistry and immunology.

You might well be able to obtain some very interesting results by studying the effects of hydrostatic pressure on serological reactions. I think that the details of your experimental program may be discussed after you arrive here. Although we do not yet have very satisfactory quantitative methods of investigation of artificial antibodies, it would, I think, be well worth while for you to do some work with Professor Dan. H. Campbell on the effect of pressure on the conversation of normal globulin into antibody by interaction with antigen after urea treatment. Some work might also be done, as you suggest, on the reactions of animal antiserum. In addition, a study might be made of the effects of increased pressure on the rate of destruction of diphtheria antitoxin in urea solution—Dr. George G. Wright has been making a quantitative study of the effects of temperature, urea concentration, and hydrogen ion concentration on this reaction; the assay method based on neutralization of toxin as shown by a rabbit skin test, is accurate to perhaps three percent.

I suggest that you bring with you the 15 cc. bomb which you have at hand. Perhaps it would be worth while to make up another bomb, with capacity about 5 cc., which need not have windows, in order that pressure could be applied to a small sample of liquid. If you think that the antitoxin-denaturation problem will interest you, it might be worth while to make up a battery of simple bombs, since the rate experiments run for several hours or days.

I have not yet learned from Dr. van Niel whether he will be able to come to Pasadena during the coming winter or not. I am looking forward to his visit here.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

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