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James Watson and Francis Orick

James Watson and Francis Crick are credited with discovering the double helix structure of DNA in 1953, building on earlier research by Friedrich Miescher and Oswald Avery. Their breakthrough was facilitated by Rosalind Franklin's X-ray photographs, which they accessed without permission. The significance of their discovery was later recognized, leading to them receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their contributions to understanding the molecular structure of nucleic acids.

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6 views10 pages

James Watson and Francis Orick

James Watson and Francis Crick are credited with discovering the double helix structure of DNA in 1953, building on earlier research by Friedrich Miescher and Oswald Avery. Their breakthrough was facilitated by Rosalind Franklin's X-ray photographs, which they accessed without permission. The significance of their discovery was later recognized, leading to them receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their contributions to understanding the molecular structure of nucleic acids.

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linthelearner
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© © All Rights Reserved
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JAMES WATSON &

FRANCIS CRICK
THE DISCOVERY OF DOUBLE HELIX

Karyna, Indira, Kashwini, Liepa & Isak


Many people believe that American biologist
James Watson and English physicist Francis
Crick discovered DNA in the 1950s. In
reality, DNA was first identified in the late
1860s by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher.

BACKGROUND Without the scientific foundation provided by


these pioneers, Watson and Crick may never
have reached their groundbreaking conclusion

KNOWLEDGE of 1953: that the DNA molecule exists in the


form of a three-dimensional double helix.

Franklin’s excellent X-ray photographs, to which


they had gained access without her permission,
were critical to the correct solution.
JAMES
WATSON
1943- Received scholarship in University
of Chicago
1947- Received his degree in zoology and
doctorate
September 1950 to September 1951- he
spent his first postdoctoral year in
Copenhagen as a Merck Fellow of the
National Research Council.
1951 – arrived at the Cavendish
Laboratory
• At a conference in the spring of
1951 at the Zoological Station at
Naples, Watson heard Wilkins talk
on the molecular structure of DNA
and saw his recent X-ray
crystallographic photographs of
DNA. He was hooked.
FRANCIS CRICK
-Born on June 8th, 1916
-He studied physics at University College,
London, obtained a B.Sc. in 1937
-He strated research for a Ph.D. under Prof E.
N. da C. Andrade but was interrupted by the
outbreak of the 2WW in 1939.
-In 1947 he left the admiralty to study biology
- july 28 2004
THE BEGINNING
Researchers working on DNA in the early 1950s used the term
"gene" to mean the smallest unit of genetic information, but
they did not know what a gene actually looked like structurally
and chemically, or how it was copied and passed from
generation to generation. In 1944, Oswald Avery had shown that
DNA was the carrier of hereditary information, making
experiments with bacteria. Nevertheless, many scientists
continued to believe that DNA was too simple to store genetic
information for making complex living organisms. The genetic
material, they reasoned, must consist of proteins, much more
diverse and intricate molecules known to perform plenty of
biological functions in the cell.

Crick and Watson, however, believed Avery`s conclusions and in


summer 1951 decided to explore DNA molecules, using
different methods, one of them being X-ray crystallography.
After several attempts, including their own ill-fated
three-stranded version and one in which the bases
were paired like with like (adenine with adenine, etc.),
they achieved their break-through.
The two had shown that in DNA, form is function: the
double-stranded molecule could both produce exact
copies of itself, as one strand acts as a template for
another, and carry genetic instructions. During the
following years, Crick elaborated on the double-
helical model, advancing the hypothesis, that the
sequence of the bases in DNA forms a code by which
genetic information can be stored and transmitted.

SUCCESS
SIGNIFICANCE OF DISCOVERY
Watson and Crick described their ideas in
an article in Nature, published on May 30,
1953.
It was not frequently cited at first, but its true
significance became apparent, and its
circulation widened, towards the end of the
1950s, when the structure of DNA they had
proposed was shown to provide an explanation
of mechanism for controlling protein
synthesis, and when their conclusions were
confirmed in the laboratory by other scientists.
NOBEL PRIZE
In 1962 the Nobel Prize in Physiology
or Medicine was awarded jointly to
Francis Harry Compton Crick, James
Dewey Watson and Maurice Hugh
Frederick Wilkins "for their discoveries
concerning the molecular structure of
nucleic acids and its significance for
information transfer in living material"
SOURCES
• https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1962/crick/biographical/
• https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/discovery -of-dna-structure-and-function-watson-
397/#:~:text=Discovery%20of%20DNA%20Double%20Helix,Crick%20%7C%20Learn%20Science%20at
%20Scitable
• Discovery of DNA Double Helix: Watson and Crick | Learn Science at Scitable (nature.com)
• Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins | Science History Institute
• https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53dn.html
• https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/spotlight/sc/feature/doublehelix

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