Francis Crick :: DNA from the Beginning Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004) Francis Crick (1916-2004) Francis Harry Compton Crick was born in a small town near Northampton, England. As a child, Crick was very inquisitive and he read all of the books of Children's Encyclopedia that his parents bought him. He found the sections that dealt with science most interesting. This interest led to "kitchen" experiments and eventually serious study and a second-class Honours degree in physics at University College , London. The physics Crick learned in class was already out of date, so he taught himself the rudiments of quantum mechanics while doing graduate research on the viscosity of water. World War II interrupted his graduate studies. During the war, Crick worked for the Admiralty doing mostly research and design on magnetic and acoustic mines. When the war ended, Crick continued to work at the Admiralty but he knew he did not want to design weapons for the rest of his life. The problem was that he was unsure what he did want to do. In the end, he decided to enter the life sciences.

He liked reading, thinking, and talking about the new discoveries being made in the life sciences. Crick found that "what you are really interested in is what you gossip about." To pursue his interests, Crick visited several labs and scientists. He finally settled in for a two year stint at Strangeways Laboratory where he did work on the effects of magnetism on chick fibroblast cells. In 1947, armed with this biology experience, Crick joined Max Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge . Sir Lawrence Bragg was directing a new unit of the Laboratory where they were using X-ray crystallography to study protein structure. Max Perutz was working on the structure of hemoglobin and Crick's thesis project was on X-ray diffraction of proteins. In 1951, Francis Crick met James Watson who was visiting Cambridge. Although Crick was twelve years older, he and Watson "hit it off immediately." Watson ended up staying at Cavendish, and using available X-ray data and model building, the two solved the structure of DNA. The classic paper was published in Nature in April 1953. A flip of the coin decided the order of the names on the paper.

Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for solving the structure of DNA. Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin provided some of the X-ray crystallographic data. After the "double helix" model, there were still questions about how DNA directed the synthesis of proteins. Crick and some of his fellow scientists, including James Watson, were members of the informal "RNA tie club," whose purpose was "to solve the riddle of RNA structure, and to understand the way it builds proteins." The club focused on the "Central Dogma" where DNA was the storehouse of genetic information and RNA was the bridge that transferred this information from the nucleus to the cytoplasm where proteins were made. The theory of RNA coding was debated and discussed, and in 1961, Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner provided genetic proof that a triplet code was used in reading genetic material. For most of his career, Crick was at Cambridge working for the Medical Research Council . In 1976, Crick moved to the Salk Institute in La Jolla where he focused his research on developmental neurobiology.

In 1988, he wrote about his experiences in What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery. Crick has been described as having a keen intellect and a dry, British sense of humor. DNA was first crystallized in the late 70's — remember, the 1953 X-ray data were from DNA fibers. So, the real "proof" for the Watson-Crick model of DNA came in 1982 after the B-form of DNA was crystallized and the X-ray pattern was solved. If the DNA of one human cell is stretched out, it would be almost 6 feet long and contain over three billion base pairs. How does all this fit into the nucleus of one cell? GNN - Genetics and Genomics Timeline Genetics and Genomics Timeline 1953 Francis H. C. Crick (1916-2004) and James D.

Watson (1928-) discover that the chemical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) meets the unique requirements for a substance that encodes genetic information Genes, by mid-twentieth century, were located to the chromosomes, known to be composed of protein and deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. The discovery of its molecular structure, by Francis Crick and James Watson, immediately suggested that DNAnot a protein, as was widely imaginedwas the master molecule that contains the genes, self-replicates and recombines during reproduction. James D. Watson Courtesy Bill Geddes In 1951 Crick, a graduate student at Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, began working informally with the American post-doctorate James Watson. Crick had trained in physics and was engaged in X-ray studies to characterize biological molecules. Watson had studied with Salvador Luria, a pioneer in bacterial genetics. Both Crick and Watson were explicitly motivated to investigate DNA by suspicion of its fundamental significance. For about two years Crick and Watson worked together without success.

Emulating the eminent chemist Linus Pauling, who had made an important but failed effort to describe DNA, they began building three-dimensional models, using cardboard cutouts and sheet metal to represent the molecule's chainlike structure. They were aware that DNA might have the general, winding shape of a helix. But how DNA's four bases (adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine) were arranged around a sugar and phosphate backbone remained a mystery. On February 21, 1953, Watson had the key insight. He recognized how two pairs of complementary bases (adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine) would have identical shapes if held together by hydrogen bonds. Two long chains of such base pairs would likely form a double helixroughly, the shape of an enormously long, winding, doubled-railed staircase. The DNA molecule, comprised of long strands of such base pairs in specific and varied sequences, could embed genetic information that, if the strands were separated, could be copied. Francis H. C.

Crick Courtesy The Salk Institute Indeed, with Crick and Watson's discovery, together with evidence acquired over the previous decade, the implication that DNA contained the genes was immediately apparent. On April 25, 1953, Nature published their brief communication, in which they famously noted that "the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." Crick and Watson elaborated with a longer paper several weeks later. Subsequent work made it abundantly clear that DNA, indeed a double helix, was the chemical substance of genes. In 1962 Crick and Watson were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Maurice Wilkins, whose work with Rosalind Franklin on X-ray crystallography had provided crucial evidence. Discovery of the structure of DNA was the keystone to a half-century of research that initiated a scientific revolution. Biology acquired a molecular and biochemical basis, and research into DNA brought forth new technologies that illuminated the complex chemistry of protein synthesis and reproduction. Francis Crick became one of the chief investigators of molecular biology through the mid-1970s, before turning to work in neurobiology.

James Watson, an eminent figure in genetics research in the United States, became head of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and, for a time during the late 1980s, of the Office of Human Genome Research of the National Institutes of Health. James D. Watson & Francis H. C. Crick winners of the Francis Crick | The Francis Crick Institute The Francis Crick Institute Francis Crick Francis Crick © Siegel RM, Callaway EM: Francis Crick's Legacy for Neuroscience: Between the α and the Ω. PLoS Biol 2/12/2004: e419. Photo: Marc Lieberman Francis Crick (1916-2004) was one of Britain's great scientists. He is best known for his work with James Watson which led to the identification of the structure of DNA in 1953, drawing on the work of Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and others. This discovery proved to be of enormous importance to biomedical research - and to life and health - and earned Crick, Watson and Wilkins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.

Crick began his scientific career in physics, obtaining a BSc from University College London in 1937. During World War Two he worked as a scientist for the Admiralty Research Laboratory, working on the design of magnetic and acoustic mines. In 1947 Crick made the transition from physics into biology, which he described as "almost as if one had to be born again". His early studies at Cambridge were supported by a studentship from the Medical Research Council (MRC). In 1949 Crick joined the MRC Unit headed by Max Perutz, which subsequently became the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology . During this period he worked on the X-ray crystallography of proteins, obtaining his PhD in 1954. A critical influence in Crick's career was his friendship, beginning in 1951, with James Watson, then a young man of 23. They shared an interest in the fundamental question of how genetic information could be stored in molecular form, leading in 1953 to the proposal of the double-helical structure for DNA.

Crick then concentrated on the biological implications of the structure of the DNA molecule, developing further insights into the genetic code − including the so called 'central dogma' explaining the flow of information from DNA to RNA to protein. In subsequent years he expanded his interests to focus on how the brain works and the nature of consciousness. Francis Crick was noted for his intelligence, openness to new ideas and collaborations with scientists working in different fields of expertise. The Francis Crick Institute embraces these qualities as it strives to achieve excellence in biomedical research. Francis Crick was noted for his intelligence, openness to new ideas and collaborations with scientists working in different fields of expertise. The Francis Crick Institute embraces these qualities as it strives to achieve excellence in biomedical research. Links Biography for Kids: Scientist - James Watson and Francis Crick James Watson and Francis Crick DNA by Jerome Walker and Dennis Myts Occupation: Molecular biologists Best known for: Discovering the structure of DNA Biography: James Watson James Watson was born on April 6, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He was a very intelligent child. He graduated high school early and attended the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen.

James loved birds and initially studied ornithology (the study of birds) at college. He later changed his specialty to genetics . In 1950, at the age of 22, Watson received his PhD in zoology from the University of Indiana. In 1951, Watson went to Cambridge, England to work in the Cavendish Laboratory in order to study the structure of DNA. There he met another scientist named Francis Crick. Watson and Crick found they had the same interests. They began working together. In 1953 they published the structure of the DNA molecule . This discovery became one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century. Watson (along with Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for the discovery of the DNA structure. He continued his research into genetics writing several textbooks as well as the bestselling book The Double Helix which chronicled the famous discovery. Watson later served as director of the Cold Spring Harbor Lab in New York where he led groundbreaking research into cancer . He also helped to form the Human Genome Project which mapped out the human genetic sequence.

Francis Crick Francis Crick was born in Weston Favell, England on June 8, 1916. His father was a shoemaker, but Francis soon found a love for learning and science. He did well in school and attended the University College London. Crick had won several awards for his research when he met James Watson at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England. They soon made their famous discovery of the DNA double helix in 1953. After making the discovery and winning the Nobel Prize in 1962, Crick continued his research into genetics at Cambridge. He later worked as a research professor at the Salk Institute in California for many years. Crick died of colon cancer on July 28, 2004. Discovering the Structure of DNA In the early 1950s, scientists had learned a lot about genetics, but they still didn't understand the structure of the DNA molecule. Scientists needed to understand the structure of DNA in order to fully understand genetics. The Cavendish Laboratory had put together a team to try and solve the problem before an American team led by the famous biochemist Linus Pauling could.

It became a race to see who could figure it out first! When Crick and Watson met at Cambridge they quickly learned that they had the same passion for solving the DNA structure. They both had similar ideas as well on how the problem could be solved. Despite having very different personalities, they became good friends and respected each other's work. Using stick-and-ball models, Watson and Crick tested their ideas of how the DNA molecule might fit together. Their first attempt in 1951 failed, but they kept at it. They also used information from X-ray pictures to give them ideas for the structure. Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins were two scientists that were experts in taking these pictures. Crick and Watson were able to gain some valuable information by studying pictures taken by Franklin and Wilkins. In 1953, Crick and Watson were able to put together an accurate model of the DNA structure. The model used a twisting "double helix" shape. This model would help scientists throughout the world in learning more about genetics. Interesting Facts about James Watson and Francis Crick When Watson was a kid, he appeared as a contestant on the radio show Quiz Kids. Watson became the second person to make his genetic sequence available online.

Both Crick and Watson had strong personalities. Crick was outgoing and boisterous. Watson was considered more reserved, but arrogant. Crick and Watson used Rosalind Franklin's images of the DNA molecule without her permission. Both Watson and Crick were inspired by the book What Is Life? by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger. Watson: 'DNA was my only gold rush' - CNN.com Watson: 'DNA was my only gold rush' By Elizabeth Landau, CNN updated 5:17 PM EDT, Fri June 28, 2013 STORY HIGHLIGHTS James Watson, 85, and Francis Crick figured out DNA has a double helix structure Watson and Crick shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for the discovery Watson was also the first director of the Human Genome Project Cold Spring Harbor, New York (CNN) -- At 85, James Watson still plays tennis every week. His hips and knees haven't given out yet, he says, and he likes grass courts. "I try and play people who can hit the ball hard," he said Tuesday at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a Long Island, New York, research institution he directed for 25 years.

Watson has always gone up against tough competition, especially in science. Most famously, in 1953, he and Francis Crick figured out that DNA, the molecule of life, has a double helix structure, beating their rival Linus Pauling to the answer. Solving the DNA structure set the stage for the foundation of much of modern biology, as scientists use insights about DNA to develop disease treatments, trace the inheritance of physical traits and explore how conditions can be passed down from generation to generation. Having shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery with Crick and Maurice Wilkins in 1962, who are now both deceased, Watson is aware that he perhaps has no competitor in the title of most famous living scientist. "That's really saying, there's not been another DNA," he said, clad in khaki Bermuda shorts, beige socks and brown loafers. "All you can say is that you were very lucky. You were born at the right time and your parents gave you books when you were young." Early life James Watson, who won a Nobel Prize for co-discovering the structure of DNA, holds a model of the molecule.

"It hasn't made the world perfect, but it's a very powerful tool for trying to make it more perfect," Watson says. Click through to learn more about the history of genetics. Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk and botanist, studied garden peas and came to understand the concepts of dominant and recessive genes. These studies in the 1860s helped establish the knowledge base for modern genetics. This is an illustration of what Mendel found. George Wells Beadle, an American geneticist, shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with E.L. Tatum in 1958. The scientists established that "genes act by regulating definite chemical events," according to the Nobel Prize website. Francis Crick, left, and James Watson, right, discovered the double helix structure of DNA in 1953. They were awarded a Nobel Prize for the work in 1962, along with Maurice Wilkins. Physicist Walter Gilbert, shown in 1980, shared a Nobel Prize with Frederick Sanger, Alan Coulson and Alan Maxam for developing techniques to sequence DNA. Watson was the first director of the Human Genome Project, which ended in 2003.

The effort drew a complete map of the human genome. In 2012, researchers announced an effort called Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE). Whereas the Human Genome Project determined the order of letters in the genome, ENCODE looks at the interpretation of that, examining which genetic variants affect biochemical function, and which ones are associated with disease. Milestones in genetics >> Photos: Milestones in genetics Watson was born in Chicago in 1928. His father didn't finish college, and he worked collecting money for a correspondence school. "I think I was probably lucky to have been raised in the awful days of the Depression and then Hitler, the war," Watson says. "It made me" -- he takes one of his signature long pauses -- "Conscious. Don't make big mistakes. You can lose everything." When the geneticist was about 8 years old, he wanted to know how birds migrate. It seemed like a big puzzle to him, one of many throughout his life. He wanted to go into science to understand the world better. FACTS ABOUT JAMES WATSON 5 cool things DNA testing can do His parents didn't expect him to get a job that would take him away from his studies.

Occasionally he worked at a drug store fountain, but nothing that would require significant time out of his school work. Watson did his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago, which he began after only two years of high school. There, he said, he learned how to think, be confident in his thoughts and push himself in the direction of solving big problems. He says he brought that self-confidence to Indiana University, where he earned a Ph.D. Watson and Crick Watson decided he wanted to work on the three-dimensional structures of molecules, a subject that represented a new frontier at the time. There weren't many labs in the world where such research was being conducted; one of them was the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England. Crick, a researcher there, had studied physics, and he was 12 years older than Watson. They had lunch together almost every day. "He was the first person I met who I could really talk to," Watson says. "I'd met people, but they didn't share my conviction that only DNA was important. They were all going and doing experiments which I thought won't get us anywhere if you're wanting to know the nature of life.

I think, early on, I wanted to do something important with my life." They worked on the problem of the structure of DNA for about a year and a half. They made mistakes along the way, but collaborated on figuring out a way to describe genetic material. The final answer came through models made with cardboard cutouts that Watson prepared. Just the day before he and Crick discovered it, a researcher named Jerry Donohue told Watson he had the chemistry wrong; he'd included chemical bonds that didn't exist. When Watson changed the chemistry, the model started to make sense. "I thought I had the answer," he remembers. "Crick came in and immediately looked and said, 'It's the answer.' We talked about it, we went to lunch, we had to tell people we'd done something important, but they didn't know what we were saying." They would need to build a complete model in order to really declare victory, Watson writes in his memoir "The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Structure of DNA." Later they did make one, out of steel and brass.

But on the day of the discovery, he felt queasy when he said Crick told "everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life." Genetic groundbreaker Video: Who owns your DNA? That secret of life, the language of the gene, was wound up in a double helix. The structure of DNA is two twisted strands of deoxyribose sugars and phosphate groups, held together by the bases adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). Each A on one strand corresponds to a T on the other, and each C on one strand corresponded to a G on the other. These base pairs are like rungs of a ladder, holding the helical structure together. "All we could say when we got it: It's so beautiful!" Watson remembers. Watson and Crick published their Earth-shattering discovery in the journal Nature in 1953, in an article describing how the two chains were held together by bases.

In one of the most iconic understatements of modern science, they wrote, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." These insights about how DNA stores information, and how it's replicated, changed biology forever. "Everything we do since then is more or less based on that structure," said Mario Capecchi, professor of genetics and human biology at the University of Utah, who was a graduate student of Watson's at Harvard University in the 1960s. ...and Franklin? While Watson and Crick are celebrated worldwide for the discovery, there were other researchers who also worked on the structure of DNA at that time. On this point, the history gets controversial. Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins were using a technique called X-ray diffraction to look for the geometry of DNA. In this method, scientists treated the DNA in a certain way so when they shined X-rays on it, they bounced off the sample and created patterns on photographic film. These patterns helped scientists infer the crystal's structures.

" Photo 51 ," which Raymond Gosling created under Franklin's direction, using this method, indicated the helical structure of DNA to Watson and Crick, according to the official Nobel Prize website. But Watson remembers Franklin and her work differently -- it was eight months between her team's picture and the double helix discovery, and, according to Watson, Franklin did not want to investigate the possibility of a helical structure. Franklin died at age 37 of ovarian cancer, before the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded for the DNA structure discovery. The award is never given posthumously, and Franklin was never nominated, according to the Nobel Prize website . Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953 at Cambridge University, where they worked on figuring out the structure of DNA. The important problems Colleagues of Watson say he's a big fan of hanging around smart people. Watson and Crick were a history-making team, but they went their separate ways after the DNA double helix discovery. In 1956, Watson moved to Harvard. Capecchi remembers that Watson taught him not to limit himself in terms of work that will make a difference.

"One of the mantras that I keep with me: It takes about the same amount of energy to work on a little problem as the big problems, so why waste your time on the little problems?" Capecchi said. "Put your efforts into significant problems." Shakespeare, thou art stored in DNA Watson then directed the Long Island research institution from 1968 to 1993, overseeing its tremendous expansion into education and research, not to mention the installment of a statue of Charles Darwin looking out at the boats. "We became one of the most prominent cancer researcher places in the country," said Bruce Stillman, president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "Just as he was with the double helix, he was a real visionary in running an institution, and how an institution can have an impact on the world." The force of Watson's personality has influenced the development of the lab, said Jan Witkowski, a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "He didn't tolerate fools," Witkowski said. "That includes in meetings." Watson has been quoted in the past making controversial, unscientific claims about sensitive matters.

"He thinks very, very out of the box, and I think that's one of the penalties you get for thinking out loud about things and wondering about them," Stillman said. "He challenges people to think about issues, and you get into trouble doing that." Watson also was the first director of the Human Genome Project, an international project aiming to sequence the human genome, but resigned in 1992. The project ended in 2003, establishing the order of the 3 billion letters in the genome, which can be thought of as "the book of life." Between insights from the genome project and the double helix structure, DNA has proved to be important in surprising areas, Watson said, from DNA fingerprinting to diagnosing risk for genetic disease. DNA will probably be essential in future cures for cancer, because cancer arises from changes in DNA, Watson said. "I don't want to die until I see cancer cured," he said with a laugh. "Because I think it could happen." Watson today On the sunny grounds of Cold Spring Harbor, Watson dons a white floppy hat and glasses. These days, he's interested in how exercise prevents disease such as cancer, and says he has some unpopular ideas about antioxidants and diet.

Cold case cops find new DNA strategy Among Watson's current activities is writing a book about his father and his family called "Father to Son." He's learned that he descended from a Watson living in Springfield, Illinois, who decided to go on the Gold Rush. When this ancestral Watson returned, he established a confectionery store where -- according to James Watson -- Abraham Lincoln used to buy desserts. The ancestor also founded a large resort hotel in the Midwest, which wouldn't have happened unless he'd taken a big chance to go look for gold. As far as Watson, "DNA was my only gold rush," he said. "I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush." Besides genetics and curing cancer, Watson has been thinking about his age. He used to not want to get to 90 because it's "hard to find role models" among that age group, and now he finds it hard to find desirable conversation partners among his peers. "The brain doesn't have to..." Here he pauses and looks up at the ceiling. "...

sort of, be unimaginative when you're older, but you almost have to move in a world where people are young, to make you think that way." Part of complete coverage on The Francis Crick Papers: Biographical Information The Francis Crick Papers "Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself." --Francis Crick As a theorist in a science based on experiment, Francis Crick, more than any other single scientist, defined the field of molecular biology during its "classical period" from the discovery of the double helical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in 1953 to the elucidation of the complete genetic code in 1966. In the words of fellow Nobel laureate Jacques Monod, "No one man discovered or created molecular biology. But one man dominates intellectually the whole field, because he knows the most and understands the most: Francis Crick." Crick went on to make important contributions to developmental biology and, during the last twenty-five years of his life, to neurobiology.

His insights into DNA and the genetic code, ground-breaking in their time, have become standards of science education as well as references in popular culture. Francis Harry Compton Crick was born on June 8, 1916, to middle-class parents in Northampton, England, a center of leather and footwear manufacturing. Crick's father managed a shoe and boot factory which his own father had founded. His mother was a school teacher. In his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit (1988), Crick recounts that while a student at Northampton Grammar School he performed chemistry experiments, including a failed attempt to make artificial silk, but otherwise does "not recall being exceptionally precocious." At age fourteen he won a scholarship to Mill Hill School, a private boys' school in North London. Crick remembers that science instruction there was thorough, but still he learned the basics of Mendelian genetics on his own because it was not taught at the school. Upon graduating from University College London in 1937 with a second-class honors degree in physics, he took up graduate work in physics at the college, studying the viscosity of water at high temperatures.

These studies, which never engaged Crick intellectually, were interrupted by World War II when a bomb destroyed his apparatus. During the war he served on the scientific staff of the Admiralty, where he designed acoustic and magnetic mines for naval warfare. In 1947, Crick, thirty-one years old, intellectually restless, weary of military research, and with an undistinguished record in his chosen field of physics, decided to change fields and careers altogether. In making this decision he applied what he called the "gossip test": he figured that the issues one feels most passionate for are those one gossips about, and that insight will come from the curiosity and dedication that only passion can sustain. Crick thus determined that he was faced with a choice between two scientific areas: molecular biology and the mysteries of consciousness. Concluding that his training in physics prepared him better for the former, Crick in 1947 successfully applied for a fellowship from the Medical Research Council (MRC), the agency that has general responsibility for the promotion of biomedical research in Britain.

Crick joined a cohort of physicists, including Max Delbrück, Leo Szilard, Maurice Wilkins, and Seymor Benzer, who turned to molecular biology in order to apply approaches central to physics (quantum mechanics, quantitative methods, and model building) to a science with few theoretical or mathematical underpinnings. Crick characterized the intellectual adjustment required by his transition from physics to biology "almost as if one had to be born again," because a theorist in biology had to rely on experimental evidence to a much greater extent than in physics. With little knowledge of biology, Crick went to Cambridge University to work at the Strangeways, a tissue culture laboratory where for two years he studied the physical properties of cytoplasm, the material of the cell that surrounds the nucleus, while reading widely in biology and chemistry. In 1949, he transferred to the MRC's unit at the Cavendish physics laboratory in Cambridge. There he pursued doctoral research under Max Perutz on the determination of protein structure by X-ray crystallography, a technique by which crystals of molecules were exposed to X-rays, yielding a diffraction pattern on photographic film which allowed inferences about the position of the individual atoms within the molecule.

In the summer of 1951, Crick began his collaboration with James D. Watson, a postdoctoral fellow from the United States eleven years his junior. Their collaboration is the best-known of several examples of Crick's remarkable ability to form sustained productive friendships with other scientists. During long conversations in their shared office and at daily lunches at The Eagle, a pub around the corner from the Cavendish, the two delineated the physical structure of DNA, the molecule that had recently been shown to control heredity. They reported in the journal Nature on April 25, 1953, that DNA consisted of a double helix in which two sugar-phosphate backbones were linked like a twisted ladder by four types of nitrogen-containing bases, so that adenine was always paired with thymine and guanine with cytosine. The pairing rule meant that the two chains were complementary and that each could serve as a template for a new chain during cell division, providing a model for the transmission of hereditary characteristics from one generation to the next.

In recognition of their discovery Watson and Crick received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 together with Maurice Wilkins, the crystallographer who had taken the first high-resolution X-ray images of DNA fibers and who had thus laid the groundwork for their discovery. Later Crick hung a helix, single-stranded and painted gold, over the door to the double-wide row house in the historic center of Cambridge he and his family occupied for many years. Crick regarded the discovery of the double helix as a powerful example of the experimental and theoretical methods by which complex problems in biology could be reduced to fundamental laws of physics and chemistry. Indeed, throughout his scientific career he was driven by his conviction that the origins and processes of life, including human consciousness and free will, could be explained entirely in rational, scientific terms. In a series of lectures published under the title Of Molecules and Men (1966), he formulated his stance against what he called vitalism, the belief that life, evolution, and consciousness were generated and directed by a metaphysical force not subject to verification by experiment.

An avowed atheist, Crick resigned as a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, after one year when the college decided to erect a chapel, which he considered an offensive anachronism. Crick earned his PhD degree from Cambridge University's Gonville and Caius College in 1953, with a dissertation entitled "X-Ray Diffraction: Polypeptides and Proteins," in which he worked out the theory of X-ray diffraction by a helix. He spent the 1953-54 academic year as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of the X-ray crystallographer David Harker at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, the first of many visits to the United States. Upon returning to the MRC laboratory at Cambridge, his home institution for the next twenty-two years, Crick undertook research of rare breadth.

(He never taught or advised students.) He renewed his collaboration with Watson in 1955, when the two developed a general theory about the molecular structure of small viruses, and he worked with the visiting American biochemist Alexander Rich on the structure of several biological molecules, particularly collagen, a family of proteins that are found outside of cells and that give strength and flexibility to connective tissue. However, Crick devoted most of his efforts between 1954 and the mid-1960s to studying the genetic coding problem, that is, the action by which genes controlled the synthesis of proteins, the building blocks of life. Crick inferred that the sequence in which the four bases of DNA were arrayed encoded the instructions for building long chains made of a combination of the twenty common amino acids, which then folded themselves up into proteins. (Watson and Crick drew up the canonical list of twenty amino acids at The Eagle.) Crick called this inference the sequence hypothesis. The challenge was to decipher the code by which the four-letter language of DNA was translated into the twenty-letter language of proteins.

In tackling the coding problem, Crick assumed that genetic information, once transmitted from DNA (probably through a messenger made, most likely, of ribonucleic acid, or RNA) and used to assemble the amino acid chain, could not reversely flow out of the protein and affect the sequence of the bases in the RNA messenger. This he proclaimed to be the "Central Dogma" of molecular biology. Finally, he predicted the existence of a group of molecules, later found and called transfer RNA, that aided in the assembly of the amino acid chain. Crick began work on the genetic code with Vernon Ingram and continued it during his most enduring collaboration, that with the South African geneticist Sydney Brenner, from 1957 onward. In 1961, Crick and Brenner described in Nature how, by studying mutations in a bacterial virus, they obtained evidence that the genetic code was to be read three bases at a time, proceeding in one direction from a fixed starting point on the DNA strand.

(The American biochemist Marshall Nirenberg had, concurrently, reached the same conclusion.) Over the next five years, Crick and his colleagues in England and the United States identified the triplets for all twenty amino acids in a rush of inspired research and friendly competition. With the elucidation of the genetic code completed and molecular biology established on a firm footing, Crick in the mid-1960s turned to other fields, especially to developmental biology, the study of how genes control the growth and specialization of organs. To reflect this shift Crick and Brenner, who in 1962 had become joint heads of the Molecular Genetics Division of the Medical Research Council's newly-established Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, renamed the division the Division of Cell Biology in 1969. During these years he was much in demand as a lecturer, a role in which he excelled and in which he traveled the globe. In 1976, he began a sabbatical year at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, a privately-funded research institute whose scientific direction Crick, as a Visiting Fellow, had helped to plot from the time it was built in 1962.

In 1977, he accepted a permanent appointment there as J. W. Kieckhefer Research Professor. He used the occasion of his relocation to the United States to shift his focus from molecular biology to his other long-standing scientific interest, neurobiology. In further collaborations, notably with the computational neuroscientist Christof Koch, Crick studied the visual system of humans in an attempt to uncover the neural correlates of consciousness, how the electrochemical interactions of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex and related parts of the brain give rise to the subjective mind. He explained his approach to consciousness in The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (1994), and published articles on such issues as the action of dendritic spines and the function of dream sleep. He was editing his latest article on neurobiology just days before his death from colon cancer on July 28, 2004, in La Jolla, California, at age eighty-eight. Crick was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1959, became a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1968, and was a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the Irish Academy of Sciences.

He received the Lasker Award, often called the American Nobel Prize, in 1960, with Watson and Wilkins. He also received the Award of Merit of the Gairdner Foundation of Canada, and the Prix Charles Leopold Mayer of the French Academy of Sciences, along with other important recognitions. In 1991, the Queen named Crick to the Order of Merit, an honorary institution of 24 outstanding scientists, artists, and writers. (Contrary to common assumption, he was never knighted.) Crick is the author of four books and more than 130 scientific articles. His first marriage, to Ruth Doreen Dodd, ended in divorce in 1947. He was survived by his wife, Odile, until her death on July 5, 2007, an artist whom he met at the Admiralty while she was serving as a translator of captured German documents, and whom he married in 1949; a son from his first marriage, Michael F. C. Crick of Seattle, a software designer in Seattle; two daughters from his second marriage, Gabrielle A. Crick and Jacqueline M. T.

Nichols, both of England; and six grandchildren. Brief Chronology 1916 --Born Francis Harry Compton Crick in Northampton, England (June 8) 1930 --Family moves to North London so that Francis can attend the private Mill Hill School 1937 --Graduates from University College London with a degree in physics; takes up graduate work in liquid physics at University College London 1939-47 --Scientist at the British Admiralty Research Laboratory, where he designs mines for naval warfare 1940 --Marries Ruth Doreen Dodd (their marriage ends in divorce in 1947) 1947 --Receives a Medical Research Council (MRC) fellowship to conduct research on the physical properties of cytoplasm at the Strangeways tissue culture laboratory in Cambridge, England, under Arthur Hughes 1949 --Marries Odile Speed (d.

2007) 1949 --Transfers from the Strangeways to the MRC Unit for the Study of the Molecular Structure of Biological Systems at the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge in order to investigate protein structure under Max Perutz 1951 --Begins his collaboration with James D.

Watson on the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) 1953 --Watson and Crick describe their double-helical model of DNA in a two-page article in Nature (April 25) 1953 --Receives his PhD from Gonville and Caius College of Cambridge University with a thesis on "X-Ray Diffraction: Polypeptides and Proteins" 1953-54 --Spends a postdoctoral year in the X-ray crystallographic laboratory of David Harker at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute 1955 --Proposes a molecular structure for the protein collagen with Alexander Rich; collaborates with Watson on the structure of small viruses; circulates "On Degenerate Templates and the Adaptor Hypothesis," an unpublished paper which predicts the existence of transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) 1956 --Collaborates with Watson on the structure of small viruses 1957 --Proposes the "Sequence Hypothesis" and the "Central Dogma," path-breaking concepts about how genetic information is encoded in DNA and controls protein synthesis 1959 --Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 19

60 --Receives the Albert and Mary Lasker Award with Watson and Maurice Wilkins 1961 --Crick and Sydney Brenner demonstrate that three nucleotides, a triplet, code for each amino acid during protein synthesis 1962 --Becomes joint head, with Brenner, of the Molecular Genetics Division (later the Division of Cell Biology) of the newly-founded MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge 1962 --Crick, Watson, and Wilkins share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1966 --Allocation of all 64 triplets of the genetic code is completed, which Crick declares a "historic occasion" 1966 --Publishes Of Molecules and Men, in which he argues against "vitalism," the belief in a metaphysical spirit which animates all life 1976 --Takes a sabbatical at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, to take up research in the neurobiology of the visual system 1977 --Receives lifetime appointment as Kieckheffer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute; resigns from the MRC 1981

 --Publishes Life Itself, a speculation on the possible extraterrestrial origins of life on earth 1988 --Publishes What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery 1991 --Appointed to the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II 1994 --Publishes The Astonishing Hypothesis, in which he proposes that consciousness arises from the molecular interactions of nerve cells in the human brain 2004 --Dies of colon cancer in La Jolla, California (July 28) James Watson :: DNA from the Beginning Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004) James Watson (1928-) James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago.

As a child, he was bright and inquisitive. One of his favorite words was "why?" and he wasn't satisfied with simple answers. He accumulated a lot of knowledge by reading the World Almanac, and won $100 as a "Quiz Kid" on a popular radio program. He used this money to buy binoculars for bird-watching ? a serious hobby for himself and his father. Watson entered the University of Chicago at 15 under the gifted youngster program. He did well in courses that interested him, like biology and zoology, and not as well in other courses. He decided that he would go to graduate school and study to become the curator of ornithology at the Museum of Natural History . In his senior year at Chicago, Watson read Erwin Schrödinger's book: What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. He was fascinated by the idea that genes and chromosomes hold the secrets of life. When Watson went to do a Ph.D. with Salvador Luria , a pioneer in bacteriophage research, at Indiana University , it seemed the perfect opportunity to work on some of these problems. After his Ph.D.

in 1950, Watson spent time in Europe, first in Copenhagen and then at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge . By now, Watson knew that DNA was the key to understanding life and he was determined to solve its structure. He was lucky to share an office with Francis Crick , a Ph.D. student who was also interested in the structure of DNA. Although both were supposed to be working on other projects, in 1953, they built the first accurate model of DNA ? one of the great scientific advances of all time. In 1962, Watson shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins who, with Rosalind Franklin, provided the data on which the structure was based. Watson wrote The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, which was published in 1968. This book was the first of its kind, being a gossipy account of the inner workings of the scientific world, and has never been out of print. In 1956, Watson accepted a position in the Biology department at Harvard University where the focus of his research was RNA and its role in the transfer of genetic information.

Although he continued to be a member of the Harvard faculty until 1976, Watson took over the directorship of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1968. Watson has had a long association with Cold Spring Harbor Lab. Salvador Luria and Max Delbrück taught a popular summer course on phage genetics, and during his graduate days, Watson enjoyed this "summer camp" for scientists. Watson has made Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory one of the world's premier research facilities for cancer, neurobiology, and basic molecular genetics. Watson retired as the President of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2004, and is now Chancellor Emeritus . Watson has played a significant role in the development of science policy, from the War on Cancer, through the debates over the use of recombinant DNA, to promoting the Human Genome Project. From 1988 to 1992, he ran the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health while still directing Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. One of his major interests is education. His first textbook, Molecular Biology of the Gene, set new standards for biology textbooks, and it was followed by Molecular Biology of the Cell, and Recombinant DNA.

He is actively exploring the avenue of multimedia education and the WWW through projects being developed at the DNA Learning Center , the educational arm of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He was and is one of the main motivators of this project, DNA from the Beginning. Watson has been described by many as brilliant, outspoken and eccentric. He is energized by intelligent people and doesn't suffer fools. Watson is an avid tennis player and has been ever since his grad school days. He still tries to play tennis every day. DNA was first crystallized in the late 70's — remember, the 1953 X-ray data were from DNA fibers. So, the real "proof" for the Watson-Crick model of DNA came in 1982 after the B-form of DNA was crystallized and the X-ray pattern was solved. If the DNA of one human cell is stretched out, it would be almost 6 feet long and contain over three billion base pairs. How does all this fit into the nucleus of one cell?

Question: Francis Crick and James Watson did their research into DNA at what institution?
Answer: Cambridge, England