Full Name: Dr. Francis Harry Compton Crick & Dr. James Dewey Watson
Date of Birth: June 8, 1916 / April 6, 1928
Place of Birth: Northampton, England / Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died: N/A / N/A
Place of Death: N/A / N/A
Classification: Scientists & Thinkers
Although the pair of scientists met by chance, they would collaborate and not only discover the make-up of life in DNA, but Francis Crick and James Watson would uncover the double-helix nature that held living organisms together. For their efforts, along with a scientist named Wilkins, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine in 1962 for their fascinating discoveries.
Young Francis Crick was educated near London. He studied physics in college and received a BS degree in the field. Interested in biology, he decided to gear his studies to focus on the effect of x-rays on proteins. James Watson, on the other hand, was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and received a scholarship to study at the University of Chicago. He also received a degree in zoology from Indiana University in Bloomington where he studied the effect of x-rays on bacteria.
After attending a symposium, Watson became intrigued with uncovering the structure of DNA. His interest and research intensified when he met Francis Crick while working at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Both wanted to uncover a gene’s true structure, and in 1953 after experimenting with cardboard and paste, the two figured out that DNA had to be composed of two double-helical configurations.
Before this discovery, Crick had been assigned to work on an experiment regarding tobacco bacteria. He still had an overwhelming urge to work on figuring out the true structure of DNA, and while working on the tobacco assignment, he found and located a virus using an electron microscope. What he found was that the virus had a double-helical structure – something that had been discovered before. His goal was to try to isolate the virus to learn how it could be warded off. It was later when he saw the tobacco virus’ resemblance to the makeup of DNA and viruses that he became engrossed in it all.
Requesting to work on creating a structural model of DNA, Crick and Watson were working together once again. What they found was that different letters of the genetic structure could be superimposed on one another without changing anything. Everything had to be equidistant and smooth. When the two published their findings in the Journal of Nature, the scientific community realized their next stop would be Stockholm, Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize.
