Howard Markel is the director of the Center for the History of Medicine and the George E. Sadly, it was just another day in the laboratory for the unsung Rosalind Franklin.ĭr. 28, 1953, was a landmark day in human history, medicine and science as well as a transformative moment in the lives of Watson and Crick. Gallant, perhaps, but the credit was a dollar short and quite a few days too late.įeb. In his 1968 memoir, "The Double Helix," James Watson discusses his less-than-gentlemanly rivalry with Rosalind Franklin as well the appreciation he came to acquire for her brilliant work. But because the Prize rules prevent it from being awarded posthumously, Franklin did not receive the credit she so richly deserved until years after her death. Watson and Crick, along with Maurice Wilkins (the colleague of Franklin's who showed Crick her data), won the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1962. Tragically, in 1958 Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer. Regardless of the report's brevity, the announcement changed the world of medicine and science forever. It was a brief communication that discussed the double helix of DNA and suggested that the two strands of DNA allowed it to create identical copies of itself. Watson and Crick published their findings in the April 25, 1953, issue of Nature. They finished building their now-famous model on March 7, 1953.
You did not have to be a high-powered scientist to see how the genetic material was copied". It was simple instantly you could explain this idea to anyone. 28, 1953: "The discovery was made on that day, not slowly over the course of the week. As Watson later reflected on the importance of Feb. Unbeknownst to Franklin, one of her colleagues let Watson see the image a few days earlier.įranklin's DNA picture experimentally confirmed the correctness of the theoretical double helical model Watson and Crick were developing. One of them, Rosalind Franklin, succeeded in taking an X-ray diffraction pattern from a sample of DNA that showed a clearly recognizable cross or helical shape. Only 50 miles away, however, a team of scientists at King's College in London was using a relatively new technique called X-ray crystallography to study DNA. Watson and Crick worked with three-dimensional models to re-construct the DNA molecule, much as a college student uses those pesky sticks and balls to cram for an organic chemistry exam. Proving how the simple brew of chemicals contained in DNA carried such an array of information required an elucidation of its actual structure, echoing a centuries' old concept in the history of medicine and science that continues to this very day: specifically, one must determine the form of a biological unit before one can begin to understand its function. Nevertheless, there remained many naysayers who felt that the chemical composition of DNA was far too simple to carry such complex data and, instead, argued that proteins must contain the true genetic material. In 1944, a trio of scientists, Oswald Avery, Colin Macleod, and Maclyn McCarty, determined that DNA was the "transforming principle," the substance that carries genetic information. But for decades, no one quite knew much about its precise function. Miescher determined that DNA, a nucleic acid found in the cell's nucleus, was comprised of sugar, phosphoric acid, and several nitrogen containing bases. That scientific feat was actually accomplished in 1869 by Friedrich Miescher, a physiological chemist working in Basel, Switzerland. That very morning, the two men worked out the double helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, better known to every first-grader as DNA. With booming voices and youthful bravado, the odd duo bragged that they, in the words of Francis Crick - or at least in the memory of James Watson recalling the words of Francis Crick - "We have discovered the secret of life." The second, Francis Crick, was a 37-year-old British physicist who, according to one of his scientific rivals, looked like "a bookmaker's rout." The first was a tall, gangly, 25-year-old American bacteriologist with uncombed hair named James Watson. Two men entered the noisy pub to create even more noise. 28, 1953, a day when real, honest-to-goodness history was made.
#Double helix free#
The place: The Eagle, a genial pub and favorite luncheon spot for the staff, students and researchers working at the University of Cambridge's old Cavendish laboratory on nearby Free School Lane. Howard Markel revisits moments that changed the course of modern medicine.
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