Watson and Crick

Francis Harry Compton Crick was born 8 June 1916 in Northampton, England. He received a children's encyclopedia from his parents, which exposed him to the amazing world of science. His fascination with this world has continued throughout his life. He received his college degree in physics and was starting graduate school when the World War II began. During the war, Crick worked on weapons for the British Admiralty. By the time the war ended, he went back to school at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University to pursue his interests by studying proteins.

James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago, Ill., on April 6th, 1928. He received a tuition scholarship to the University of Chicago after graduating from high school, and in the summer of 1943 entered their experimental four-year college. In 1947, he received a B.Sc. degree in Zoology. During these years his boyhood interest in bird watching had matured into a serious desire to learn genetics. After receiving his degree, Watson started working at the Cavindish Laboratory of Cambridge University as well.

James Watson and Francis Crick soon met and discovered their common interest in solving the DNA structure. The two new friends began to attempt to uncover the chemical structure of DNA. When their research project failed to produce results, however, the directors of Cavindish ordered them to end their investigation. But the two friends continued their work in secret, and, on February 28, 1953, they made an epic discovery.

Watson and Crick determined the structure of the molecule Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid (DNA), of which all living matter is made. The two concluded that a DNA molecule is shaped like a double helix. Using paper cutouts of the nucleotides, Watson and Crick shuffled and reshuffled combinations. They used wires and metal to create a model of twisting nucleotide strands that form the double-helix structure. According to Watson and Crick's model, the diameter of the double helix measures 2.0 nanometers (nm). Each turn of the helix is 3.4 nm long, with 10 bases in each chain making up a turn. The two chains of the helix unlink "like a zipper," and reproduce their missing halves. In this way, Watson and Crick discovered, each molecule of DNA is able to create two identical copies of itself.

This discovery of the double helix molecular structure of DNA in 1953 was one of the major scientific events of the