James Watson and Francis Crick

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at the two men who worked together, merging data from chemistry, physics, and biology to produce the DNA model the double helix, which earned them the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

From the Paper:

"The Cambridge setting is where Watson first met Francis Crick, a man that was as influential to the discovery of the double helix structure as Watson himself. Watson and Crick soon began having daily lunches to discuss the many aspects of DNA. One point of view that brought them together was their mutual stress on DNA over proteins, which many scientists thought proteins to be more important. Watson and Crick shared an attraction to DNA, and when they wound up in the same University of Cambridge lab, they bonded. To summarize the events after their collaboration, "They used several models and a trial and error method to make their historical discovery" (Portugal 264). Watson drifted from pure science into administration. As director of the molecular-biology lab at Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., he turned it into a scientific powerhouse. He also served as "head of the Human Genome Project, absorbing some fallout from the high-energy ethical debates whose fuse he and Crick had lighted nearly four decades earlier" (Watson 1). "

More papers on James Watson and Francis Crick:

• Book Review # 93947 : "James D. Watson and DNA"
• Essay # 72795 : "DNA"
• Research Paper # 91669 : "How the Structure of DNA Was Discovered"

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