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Great Minds of the Past Century

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James Watson and Francis Crick

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     Biochemistry and molecular biology were growing fields after the war. Crick began working at a Cambridge University laboratory, learning biology, organic chemistry, and x-ray diffraction technology. By 1949, he was working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, investigating the structure of proteins. He never forgot the question posed by Schrödinger:  "How can the events of space and time which take place within the . . . living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?"  And the idea of revealing the mysteries of the genetic code still drove him.

      In 1951, a 23-year-old American biologist, James Watson, joined the lab and the two formed a close working relationship. Watsons boyhood scientific interest was ornithology. But by the time he had finished college at the University of Chicago in 1947, he wanted to study the gene. Which he first did seriously at Indiana University, finishing his Ph.D. there. His thesis research was on X-ray inactivation of bacteriophage, a project that first sharpened his interest in DNA. Then, in focusing on viruses, he hoped that he was studying naked genes.

Watson and Crick's DNA Double Helix

      Watson and Crick were convinced that if the three-dimensional structure of a molecule known to play a role in passing genetic information -- DNA -- could be determined, then the way genes are passed on might also be revealed. They made models based on research done in several fields. They were getting closer, as were other scientists chasing the same goal; a race was heating up. Crick and Watson saw the result of Rosalind Franklin's x-ray diffraction studies, and a final piece of the puzzle was fitted. In 1953 they created a visual model of DNA , which over the next few years proved to fit all experimental evidence.

      Crick named his home in Cambridge "Golden Helix" and he and Watson shared the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine in 1962.

J. Watson and F. Crick
Molecular Biologists

BORN
Crick, on June 8, 1916 in Northampton, England

Watson, on April 6, 1928, in Chicago

1988 Watson named head of U.S. Human Genome Project; later resigns