MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING GANGER CENTER 
Dr. Donald S. Fredrickson 
Director of 
National Institute of Health 
Building 1 room 124 
900 Rockville Pike 
Bethesda, Md. 20014 NYC, September 22, 1978 
Dear Dr. Fredrickson, 
I have read the revised guidelines for DNA recombinant research and wish to 
express you my support and deepest appreciation. I fully agree that DNA recom- 
binant research, like many other Promethean activities of the modern scientist 
should continue to be matter of everybody's concern. On the other hand, to in- 
sist on the old guidelines after the recent acquisition of data on the subject 
here and abroad would be a dangerous obscurantism which could be labeled, without 
exageration, the greatest threat to biology since the Lysenko affair. 
Needless to say, that as a medical man who has been involved in the study of 
Man's inheritance for over 25 years, I look at DNA recombinant technology as the 
long awaited tool which may eventually permit a true hypocratic approach in medical 
genetics, i.e. the correction of genetic defects rather than the elimination of 
their carriers. This "Euphenical" measure (the term is Joshua Lederberg's) as 
opposed to currently used "Eugenical" interventions - abortion or sterilization of 
the unfit, selective mating, artificial insemination etc.- need not be inheritable. 
It should preferentially be limited to the somatic cells of a diseased tissue or 
organ for the sole purpose of adjusting the individual organism to its ecological en- 
vironment when it happens not to be so because of its unfavorable genetic make up. 
Sincerely yours, 
1273 YORK AVENUE. NEW YORK. NEW YORK 10021 
Marcello Siniscalco, M.D. 
Member and Professor of Biology 
[A-279] 
MS/mw 
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOR CANCER AND ALLIED DISEASES 
SLOAN-KETTERING INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCH 
SLOAN-KETTERING DIVISION. GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
