James Watson

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James Watson : biography

06 April 1928 –

In 1951, the chemist Linus Pauling in California published his model of the amino acid alpha helix, a result that grew out of Pauling’s efforts in X-ray crystallography and molecular model building. After obtaining some results from his phage and other experimental research conducted at Indiana University, Statens Serum Institut (Denmark), CSHL, and the California Institute of Technology, Watson now had the desire to learn to perform X-ray diffraction experiments so he could work to determine the structure of DNA. That summer, Luria met John Kendrew, and he arranged for a new postdoctoral research project for Watson in England.. In 1951 was in Naples, expecially at the Stazione Zoologica ‘Anton Dohrn’.http://www.ilmattino.it/persone/il_nobel_watson_senza_napoli_non_avrei_scoperto_la_doppia_elica_del_dna/notizie/57385.shtml

Double helix

In mid-March 1953, using experimental data collected by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick deduced the double helix structure of DNA. Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory (where Watson and Crick worked), made the original announcement of the discovery at a Solvay conference on proteins in Belgium on April 8, 1953; it went unreported by the press. Watson and Crick submitted a paper to the scientific journal Nature, which was published on April 25, 1953. This has been described by some other biologists and Nobel laureates as the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century. Bragg gave a talk at the Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday, May 14, 1953, which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the newspaper The News Chronicle of London, on May 15, 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life."

Sydney Brenner, Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton were some of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time, they were working at Oxford University’s Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner, who subsequently worked with Crick at Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology. According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA. Olby, Robert, Francis Crick: Hunter of Life’s Secrets, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2009, Chapter 10, p. 181 ISBN 978-0-87969-798-3

The Cambridge University student newspaper Varsity also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday, May 30, 1953. Watson subsequently presented a paper on the double-helical structure of DNA at the 18th Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Viruses in early June 1953, six weeks after the publication of the Watson and Crick paper in Nature. Many at the meeting had not yet heard of the discovery. The 1953 Cold Harbor Symposium was the first opportunity for many to see the model of the DNA double helix. Watson claimed that he was refused a $1,000 raise in salary after winning the Nobel Prize. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their research on the structure of nucleic acids.

At Harvard University, starting in 1956, Watson achieved a series of academic promotions from assistant professor to associate professor to full professor of biology. He championed a switch in focus for the school from classical biology to molecular biology, stating that disciplines such as ecology, developmental biology, taxonomy, physiology, etc. had stagnated and could progress only once the underlying disciplines of molecular biology and biochemistry had elucidated their underpinnings, going so far as to discourage their study by students. He left the school in 1976.

Later career

In 1968, Watson became the Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Between 1970 and 1972, the Watsons’ two sons were born, and by 1974, the young family made Cold Spring Harbor their permanent residence. Watson served as the laboratory’s director and president for about 35 years, and later he assumed the role of chancellor. In October 2007, Watson resigned as a result of controversial remark about race made to the press. In a retrospective summary of his accomplishments there, Bruce Stillman, the laboratory’s president, said, "Jim Watson created a research environment that is unparalleled in the world of science." It was "under his direction [that the Lab has] made major contributions to understanding the genetic basis of cancer."