July 1977
Dear Biochemikers,  past and present:
This (annual I) newsletter marks the transition into the intended publication
cycle. Hopefully its appearance will be regular in the future and will coin¬
cide with the opening of the annual and beloved crabgrass festival of Tippe¬
canoe County.
This past year has witnessed the continued growth of the Department and
the unmitigating pressure for space and facilities,  not only from our
current staff but our new additions.    Space has become such a limiting
factor that there is some talk of shifting all microbiological work to micro¬
coccus and restricting all protein work to monomers (undernatured) under
20, 000 daltons.
All of us were highly pleased early this year when Lee Weith joined us as
an Assistant Professor.    His general area is synthesis,   function and struc¬
ture of nucleic acids.    His credentials are outstanding in this area.    He
smote his first polynucleotide as a Ph. D.   student with Peter Gilham here
in Biology.    Some of the not too ancient and not too recent alumni may re¬
member him.    He postdoc!ed with Sanger at Cambridge,   England,  where
the great developments in the current state of gene reading were being de¬
veloped.    And then,  being stuck with a lot of stationary that read "Cambridge, "
he had no choice but to go to Harvard when it was time to change.    There he
worked with Paul Zamecnik and from there came to us.    He has made one
important discovery already.    Having a laboratory remodelled is one of the
most difficult challenges a scientist can face.    It is difficult to foresee any¬
thing that will be able to daunt him in the future,  if he makes this.    Lee,
his lovely wife Linda and their son Lee,   aged 2 years,   arrived in October.
Mark Hermodson has just joined us as an Associate Professor,  to our great
joy and satisfaction.    He has been a major force in developing the great
reputation of the University of Washington in protein sequencing as it relates
to function and genetics.    Arriving there in 1969 as a postdoc with Neurath
and Walsh,  he became an Assistant Professor in the Division of Medical
Genetics in 1972.    He acquired his Ph.D.   at the University of Wisconsin
(Karl Paul Link,  the fabled foe of factors II,   VII,  IX and X) as well as a
number of items bearing the insignia,   U.   W.  which seem to have determined
his decision to move to Seattle.    Sue,  his delightful and busy,  busy wife,
their children Amy,   7 Gail,   5,   and Mark arrived here in late April and are
just settling into their domestic quarters.    Donft ask about research quarters.
It is nice to note that Ron Somerville,  who has long been held as Full Pro¬
fessor by all of us,   has been recognized as such by the Agriculture and
University Promotions Committees.