THE CLASSIC: Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids

Abstract

James D. Watson was born April 6, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, and enrolled at the University of Chicago at the precocious age of 15, having starred on the radio show, Quiz Kids, at the age of 12. He earned his BS in Zoology in 1947. Fascinated by the work of Salvador Luria on genetic mutations, he began his PhD research in Luria's lab at the University of Indiana. Having completed his PhD in Zoology in 1950, he spent a summer at Cold Spring Harbor working on DNA, then went to Copenhagen for postdoctoral work under Herman Kalckar, who was then working on nucleic acids. During a trip to Italy with Kalckar for a meeting he learned of x-ray diffraction techniques to study DNA. Linus Pauling published in 1951 his model of the alpha helix of proteins based upon x-ray crystallography and, given Watson's fascination with the topic, Luria arranged for Watson to work on the topic under John Kendrew at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. It was there he met Francis Crick, and within a short time they had published their initial three papers2-4 on the double helix structure of DNA in 1953, one of which4 is reproduced here. Francis Harry Compton Crick was born June 8, 1916, near Northampton, England. At the age of 14 he attended school in London, then at age 21 earned a BSc in Physics from University College London. He began his PhD work there, but was interrupted by the outbreak of WWII and worked for the British Admiralty on magnetic and acoustic mines until 1947. He subsequently went to Strangeways Laboratories, Cambridge, working on the properties of cytoplasm (under Dame Honor Fell), until he moved to the Cavendish Laboratories where he and his mentors Kendrew and Max Perutz, (who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1962) worked out a general theory of x-ray diffraction of a helix. The environment was particularly fruitful, and Watson and Crick had critical additional interactions with Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins (both at King's College London), among others. Watson and Crick published a series of at least nine papers on DNA until 2003. Dr. Crick died July 28, 2004. Interested readers are referred to Watson's fascinating story of the discovery, The Double Helix.1Fig: Credit: A. Barrington Brown / Photo Researchers, Inc. The discoverers of the structure of DNA. James Watson (b. 1928) at left and Francis Crick (b. 1916), with their model of part of a DNA molecule in 1953. Crick & Watson met at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, in 1951. Their work on the structure of DNA was performed with a knowledge of Chargaff's ratios of the bases in DNA and some access to the X-ray crystallography of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College London. Combining all of this work led to the deduction that DNA exists as a double helix. Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, Franklin having died of cancer in 1958.Images and Text Copyright © 2007 Photo Researchers, Inc. All Rights Reserved.