Protein and Protoplasmic Structure 271 



you mention, telling about the Symposium held at Christmas, and 

 your scheme of turning it into a Monograph, did not reach me. I am 

 sorry, for I should have liked very much to write something for you. 

 Had your request arrived in good time probably I should have 

 made a special effort, but there's so very little spare time these days, 

 believe me! You are right in inferring that we still carry on as much 

 as possible with work on the good proteins but, our hands and 

 thoughts are pretty full with other things too. . . . 



I have become an officer in the Air Force and am functioning as 

 Navigation Instructor to the University Air Squadron. It is volun- 

 tary work, of course, and does not mean that I have abandoned 

 research, just that I have to try to fit in more things during my 

 waking hours (we don't get nearly so much sleep as we used to!) 

 and have rather less time to think about proteins, music, and all 

 the other things that make life worth living. I suppose that as the 

 war goes on there will be still less and less time or opportunity for 

 these nice things, but for the moment we are not doing too badly. 

 Our laboratory hasn't been knocked down yet and we are still alive. 

 Quite recently we have had a lot of excitement because of a 

 new advance we have made in the structure of a-keratin and (3- 

 myosin, the heroic problem of the nature of the intra-molecular 

 folds in proteins. I really think that we have got something this 

 time, as you Americans say; when I posted the manuscript I had 

 almost a 'nunc dimittis' feeling about it. 



You are certainly right in ascribing to me the belief that the 

 folded protein chain is of more importance than any other structural 

 feature in biology, or rather, the capacity of the protein chain to 

 fold. Pauling thinks so too, I should say, to judge by his more 

 recent publications; in any case, the problem of the fold is the same 

 thing as that of the linkages that promote or maintain the fold, so it 

 may well be that resonance and the hydrogen bond are of more 

 importance to physiology than any other two facts in chemistry — 

 provided, of course, the hydrogen bond does turn out to be 

 pre-eminent among protein linkages, a thing we are not too sure 

 about yet, I'm afraid. It's a pity, in one sense, that there are still 

 so many things that we are not so sure about, though in another it 

 is very gratifying, otherwise we should all lose our jobs! I only hope 

 that God is not laughing too much behind His cloud at our efforts! 



