May 1, 1944
Dr. A.N. Richards
Committee on Medical Research
2101 Constitution Avenue
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Richards:
This letter is in answer to yours of April 12th relating to our proposal
for treatment of penicillin in such a way as to increase its retention in the blood
stream.
We have recently obtained some very interesting experimental results on the
formation of complexes of substances with serum protein, and Professor Campbell and
I believe that it would be well worth while to try out these new methods, which do
not depend upon knowledge of the chemical structure, on penicillin and possibly other
physiologically active substances, without waiting for the release of information
about the chemical structure of penicillin. I would like accordingly to make application
for a small contract, permitting one or two men to work on this problem during the
coming six months in case that your Committee considers the project promising. Would
you please have a set of application blanks sent to me for this purpose?
If, later on, information about the chemical structure of penicillin were
to be released to us, we could also try out the chemical methods of coupling which
seem appropriate.
Sincerely yours,
Linus Pauling
LP:mu
