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Who2 Biography:

James Watson

, Scientist
James Watson
Source

  • Born: 6 April 1928
  • Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
  • Best Known As: Co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

James Watson and fellow scientist Francis Crick were the first to describe the hidden double-helix structure of DNA molecules. They published their findings in the journal Nature in April of 1953; the discovery was considered tremendously significant, and in 1962 Watson and Crick and their collaborator Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. His account of his DNA discoveries with Crick, The Double Helix, was published in 1968. Watson was on the faculty of Harvard University for 21 years, from 1956-76, and was director of the National Center for Human Genome Research from 1989-92, after which he served as president and later as chancellor of Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory in New York. In later years he was known for controversial off-the-cuff remarks on various topics related to genetics and gender. He resigned as chancellor of Cold Springs Harbor in 2007 after causing an uproar by suggesting that people from Africa were genetically less intelligent than whites. His other books include DNA: The Secret of Life (2003) and Avoid Boring People (2007).

Watson entered the University of Chicago at age 15. He earned his bachelor's degree there in 1947... Watson and Crick were aided in their DNA discoveries by the work of Rosalind Franklin... James Watson should not be confused with John Watson, the sidekick of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

 
 
Scientist: James Dewey Watson

[b. Chicago, Illinois, April 6, 1928]

X-ray diffraction studies from the late 1940s and early 1950s implied that the DNA molecule might be a helix (spiral). Using this and other evidence, Watson and Francis H.C. Crick concluded that DNA is a double helix, consisting of two complementary chains wound around each other and attached by their nucleotide bases. In 1968 Watson became director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island and directed it in studies of genes that cause cancer. From 1989 through 1992 he was director of the Human Genome Project in the United States, which produced one of the first maps of the human genome.


 
Genetics Encyclopedia: James Watson

Geneticist
1928-

James Dewey Watson was the codiscoverer of the structure of DNA. He has also made major contributions to research in genetics and molecular biology as an administrator, and has written widely read and influential books for both academic and nonscience audiences.

Early Life and Training

Watson was born April 6, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. He showed his brilliance early, finishing high school in two years and appearing as one of the original "Quiz Kids," on a popular 1940s radio show of the same name. He was graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a B.S. in zoology, reflecting an early love of birds. He did his doctoral work at Indiana University in genetics, and earned a Ph.D. in 1950. He was drawn to Indiana by the chance to work with Hermann Joseph Muller, who had been one of Thomas Hunt Morgan's associates in the famous "fly room" at Columbia University, and who had received a Nobel Prize for his discoveries in genetics. Watson's thesis adviser and principal mentor was Salvador Luria, who, along with Max Delbrück, had established bacterial genetics as the experimental system in which most of the major discoveries in molecular biology were to be made. Watson's thesis was on the effect of X rays on the multiplication of a bacterial virus, called phage.

Watson continued to study phage as a postdoctoral student in Copenhagen, Denmark where he worked from 1950 to 1951. While there, he met Maurice Wilkins, and for the first time saw the X-ray diffraction images generated in Wilkins's lab by Rosalind Franklin. Watson quickly decided to turn his attention to discovering the structure of important biological molecules, including DNA and proteins. By that time, DNA had been shown to be the genetic molecule, and it was believed that it somehow carried the instructions for making proteins, which actually perform most of the work in a cell.

The Structure of Dna

Luria arranged for Watson to continue his work at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, which was a center for the study of biomolecular structure, and Watson arrived there in late 1951. At the Cavendish, he met Francis Crick, who, after training in physics, had turned his attention to similar structural questions. The two hit it off, and began collaborating on the structure of DNA.

Watson and Crick approached the problem by building models of the four nucleotides known to make up DNA. Each was composed of a sugar called deoxyribose, a phosphate group, and one of four bases, called ade-nine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. They knew the sugars and phosphates alternated to form a chain, with the bases projecting off to the side. The X-ray images they had seen suggested the structure was a helix, and offered more information about dimensions as well. They also knew that the biochemist Erwin Chargaff had discovered that the amounts of adenine and thymine in a cell's DNA were equal, as were the amounts of cytosine and guanine.

After several failed attempts, more analysis of the X-ray images, and a fortuitous conversation with a biochemist who corrected one of their hypothesized base structures, they developed the correct model. The helix is formed from two opposing strands of sugar phosphates, while the bases project into the center. Weak bonding (called hydrogen bonding) between bases holds them together. The key, as Watson and Crick discovered, was that the hydrogen bonds work best when adenine pairs with thymine, and guanine with cytosine, thus explaining Chargaff's ratios. The structure immediately suggested a replication mechanism, in which each side serves as the template for the formation of a new copy of the opposing side, and they speculated, correctly, that the sequence of the bases was a code for the sequence of amino acids in proteins. They published their results in 1953, and received the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine for it 1962, along with Wilkins (Franklin by then had died, and was therefore ineligible for the prize).

Later Accomplishments

Watson remained active in the study of DNA and RNA for a number of years after the publication of the DNA structure. He joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1955, and remained there until 1976. During this time, he wrote an influential textbook, Molecular Biology of the Gene, and an enormously popular (and colorful) account of his and Crick's discovery, called The Double Helix.

In 1968 Watson became the director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York, and he became president of the laboratory in 1994, a position he continues to hold. Watson revitalized this laboratory, helping it become one of the premier genetics research institutions in the world. His organizational drive was also called upon in 1988, when he spearheaded the launch of the U.S. Human Genome Project, dedicated to determining the sequence of the entire three billion bases in the genome. He headed the project from 1988 to 1992.

Throughout his career, Watson has invariably been described as "brash," reflecting his capacity to take on big projects and big ideas, and his enthusiasm for making daring, occasionally outrageous predictions about the causes of an unexplained phenomenon or the direction science will take. Explaining this tendency in relation to his work on DNA, Watson wrote, "A potential key to the secret of life was impossible to push out of my mind. It was certainly better to imagine myself becoming famous than maturing into a stifled academic who had never risked a thought."

Bibliography

Judson, Horace F. The Eight Days of Creation, expanded edition. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 1996.

Watson, James. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. New York: New American Library, 1991.

———. Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix. New York: Knopf, 2002.

Internet Resource

"Biographical Sketch of James Dewey Watson." http://nucleus.cshl.org/CSHLlib/archives/jdwbio.htm.

—Richard Robinson

 
Biography: James Dewey Watson

The American biologist James Dewey Watson (born 1928) was a discoverer of the double-helical structure of the deoxyribonucleic acid molecule.

James D. Watson was born April 6, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. At age 15 he entered the University of Chicago. He graduated in 1947 and went on to pursue graduate study in the biological sciences at Indiana University. There he came under the influence of some distinguished scientists, including Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller, who were instrumental in shifting his interests from natural history toward genetics and biochemistry. In 1950 Watson successfully completed his doctoral research project on the effect of x-rays upon the multiplication of bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacterial cells).

Watson spent 1950-1951 as a National Research Council fellow in Copenhagen doing postdoctoral work with biochemist Herman Kalckar. He had hoped to learn more about the biochemistry of the genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). These studies proved unproductive. It was not until the spring of 1951, when he heard the English biophysicist Maurice Wilkins speak in Naples on the structure of the DNA molecule, that Watson enthusiastically turned his full attention to the DNA problem.

Watson's next research post at Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England, brought him into contact with the physicist turned biologist Francis Crick. Together they shared an interest in DNA while he was preparing for his doctorate. Thus began the partnership between Watson and Crick which resulted in their joint proposal of the double-helical model of the DNA in 1953. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their DNA studies.

The structure of the giant and complex DNA molecule reveals the physical and chemical basis of heredity. Watson and Crick were convinced that the molecular subunits which made up DNA were arranged in a relatively simple pattern that could be discovered by them. Their mode of operation stressed the conception and construction of large-scale models that would account for the known chemical and physical properties of DNA. To this model-building endeavor Watson contributed the double-helical structure, along with other fruitful, intuitive suggestions, while Crick provided the necessary mathematical and theoretical knowledge. After their work on DNA was completed, Watson and Crick collaborated again in 1957, this time in clarifying the structure of viruses.

After a two-year stay at the California Institute of Technology, Watson accepted a position as professor of biology at Harvard University in 1956 and remained on the faculty until 1976. In 1968 he became the director of the Cold Spring Biological Laboratories but retained his research and teaching position at Harvard. That same year he published The Double Helix, revealing the human story behind the discovery of the DNA structure, including the rivalries and deceits which were practiced by all.

While at Harvard Watson wrote The Molecular Biology of the Gene (1965), the first widely used university textbook on molecular biology. This text has gone through seven editions and exists in two large volumes as a comprehensive treatise of the field. He gave up his faculty appointment at the university in 1976, however, and assumed full-time leadership of Cold Spring Harbor. With John Tooze and David Kurtz, Watson wrote The Molecular Biology of the Cell, originally published in 1983.

In l989 Watson was appointed the director of the Human Genome Project of the National Institutes of Health. Less than two years later, in 1992, he resigned in protest over policy differences in the operation of this massive project. He continued to speak out on various issues concerning scientific research and upheld his strong presence concerning federal policies in supporting research. In addition to sharing the Nobel Prize, Watson received numerous honorary degrees from institutions, including one from the University of Chicago (1961) when Watson was still in his early thirties. He was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

Watson, as his book The Double Helix confirms, has never avoided controversy. His candor about his colleagues and his combativeness in public forums have been noted by critics. Nevertheless, his scientific brilliance is attested to by Crick, Delbruck, Luria, and others. The importance of his role in the DNA discovery has been well supported by Gunther Stent, a member of the Delbruck phage group, in an essay which discounts many of Watson's critics through well-reasoned arguments.

Most of Watson's professional life has been spent as a professor, research administrator, and public policy spokesman for research. More than any other location in Watson's professional life, Cold Spring Harbor (where he is still director) has been the most congenial in developing his abilities as a scientific catalyst for others. His work there has primarily been to facilitate and encourage the research of other scientists.

In 1968 Watson married Elizabeth Lewis. They had two children, Rufus Robert and Duncan James.

Further Reading

Ruth Moore, The Coil of Life: The Story of the Great Discoveries in the Life Sciences (1961), has a chapter describing Watson's personality and work in detail. George and Muriel Beadle, The Language of Life: An Introduction to the Science of Genetics (1966), and Leonard Engel, The New Genetics (1967), provide lucid discussions of Watson's life and his scientific work. General appraisals of the significance of DNA in modern biology are in Ernest Borek, The Code of Life (1965; rev. ed. 1969), and John C. Kendrew, The Thread of Life: An Introduction to Molecular Biology (1966).

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: James Dewey Watson

(born April 6, 1928, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) U.S. geneticist and biophysicist. He earned his Ph.D. at Indiana University in 1950. Using X-ray diffraction techniques, he began work in Britain with Francis Crick on the problem of DNA structure. In 1952 he determined the structure of the protein coat surrounding the tobacco mosaic virus. In early 1953 he determined that the essential DNA components, four organic bases, must be linked in definite pairs, a discovery that enabled Watson and Crick to formulate a double-helix molecular model for DNA. In 1962 the two scientists and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize. Watson's The Double Helix (1968), a best-selling personal account of the DNA discovery, aroused controversy. He taught at Harvard University (1955 – 76) and served as director of the Carnegie Institute's laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor (1968 – 94). See also Rosalind Franklin.

For more information on James Dewey Watson, visit Britannica.com.

 
US History Companion: Watson, James D.

(1928- ), scientist. Watson earned a B.S. degree in zoology in 1947 from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1950. A National Research Council Fellowship, supplemented by a grant from the March of Dimes Foundation, enabled him to do postgraduate research first in Copenhagen and then in Cambridge, England, at the Cavendish Laboratories. Here Watson began collaborative work on dna (deoxyribonucleic acid) with Francis Crick; they were joined shortly by Maurice Wilkins of King's College, London, who had been working independently in the same field. Their efforts led to the deciphering of the structure of dna in 1953.

The search for the structure of the dna molecule, which holds the secret of life, was the ultimate treasure hunt of that era of microbiology. dna's capacity to replicate itself suggested that anyone who could solve the puzzle of its structure would open the gates to a new universe of scientific discoveries. Watson and Crick defined that structure as a double helix: a form like a long, gently twisted spiral staircase. The steps of the staircase are composed of alternating units of phosphate and deoxyribose (a sugar), and each rung is made of a pair of nitrogen-containing nucleotides, bonded by hydrogen. When the dna molecule reproduces itself, it divides along the center of the step pairs; each side replicates and the new halves join to form a second double helix identical to the first.

From 1953 to 1956 Watson was Senior Research Fellow at Cal Tech; in 1956 he moved to Harvard University. In 1962 Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded Nobel Prizes in medicine and physiology for their discovery of the structure of dna.

In the mid-1950s Watson decided to write the story of their discovery and circulated the manuscript in draft form among a number of people. It raised a storm of protest from many of those mentioned in the narrative because of his critical remarks about other scientists, including the late Rosalind Franklin, who had worked in Wilkins's laboratory and who some thought deserved more credit for her contributions than she had received. At the time, the public image of science was one of high-minded devotion to the good of humanity and the advancement of knowledge; but the manuscript portrayed the field as fiercely competitive and highly personalized--undoubtedly far closer to the everyday reality. Watson's trenchant comments about many of his colleagues, however, offended even those who admired his accomplishments. Harvard University Press withdrew from an agreement to publish the book, and subsequently it was brought out by Atheneum in a somewhat revised version under the title The Double Helix in 1968.

That same year Watson became the director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. Under his leadership the laboratory thrived, functioning as a major center of dna research in addition to its scientists' work on plant molecular biology, cell biochemistry, and cancer.

In 1989 Watson was chosen as the director of the Human Genome Project, a national effort funded by Congress through the National Institutes of Health to map the human genome, recording the identity and position of every unit in a chemical chain 3 billion links long. The largest biomedical research project ever mounted in the United States, its cost is estimated at $200 million each year for ten to fifteen years.

Bibliography:

James D. Watson, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, ed. Gunther S. Stent (1980).

Author:

D. Lydia Brontë

See also Science and Technology.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Watson, James Dewey,
1928–, American biologist and educator, b. Chicago, Ill., grad. Univ. of Chicago, 1947, Ph.D. Univ. of Indiana, 1950. With F. H. C. Crick he began (1951) research on the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge Univ. Their findings, published in 1953, resulted in the joint award to them and to M. H. F. Wilkins (on whose laboratory's in X-ray diffraction their studies were partly based) of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Watson joined the faculty at Harvard in 1955 and in 1968 became director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. From 1989 to 1992 he was director of the National Center for Human Genome Research, which undertook the Human Genome Project. His chief researches have been in the fields of genetics, bacteriophage reproduction, and cancer. Remarks in a published interview in 2007 that persons of African descent were inherently less intelligent than Europeans led to his suspension and subsequent retirement as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory director.

Bibliography

See his The Double Helix (1968), The DNA Story (1981, with J. Tooze), and Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix (2002); biography by V. K. McElheny, Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution (2003); H. F. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation (expanded ed. 1996).

 
Quotes By: James Watson

Quotes:

"It is necessary to be slightly under employed if you are to do something significant."

 
Wikipedia: James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson
JamesDWatson.jpg
James D. Watson
Born April 06 1928 (1928--) (age 79)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Residence Flag of the United States U.S., Flag of the United Kingdom UK
Nationality Flag of the United States American
Field molecular biologist
Academic advisor   Salvador Luria Nobel_Prize.png
Known for DNA structure, Molecular biology
Notable prizes Nobel_Prize.png Nobel Prize (1962)

James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".[1]

Early life

Born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 6 1928, Watson was fascinated with bird watching, a hobby he shared with his father. At the age of 12, Watson starred on Quiz Kids, a popular radio show that challenged precocious youngsters to answer questions. Thanks to the liberal policy of University president Robert Hutchins, he enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of 15. After reading Erwin Schrödinger's book What Is Life? in 1946, Watson changed his professional ambitions from the study of ornithology to genetics. He earned his B.S. in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1947.

He was attracted to the work of Salvador Luria. Luria eventually shared a Nobel Prize for his work on the Luria-Delbrück experiment, which concerned the nature of genetic mutations. Luria was part of a distributed group of researchers who were making use of the viruses that infect bacteria, called bacteriophages. Luria and Max Delbrück were among the leaders of this new "Phage Group", an important movement of geneticists from experimental systems such as Drosophila towards microbial genetics. Early in 1948 Watson began his Ph.D. research in Luria's laboratory at Indiana University and that spring he got to meet Delbrück in Luria's apartment and again that summer during Watson's first trip to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). The Phage Group was the intellectual medium within which Watson became a working scientist. Importantly, the members of the Phage Group had a sense that they were on the path to discovering the physical nature of the gene. In 1949 Watson took a course with Felix Haurowitz that included the conventional view of that time: that proteins were genes and able to replicate themselves. The other major molecular component of chromosomes, DNA, was thought by many to be a "stupid tetranucleotide", serving only a structural role to support the proteins. However, even at this early time, Watson, under the influence of the Phage Group, was aware of the work of Oswald Avery which suggested that DNA was the genetic molecule. Watson's research project involved using X-rays to inactivate bacterial viruses ("phage").[2] He gained his Ph.D. in Zoology at Indiana University in 1950.

Watson then went to Europe for postdoctoral research, first heading to the laboratory of biochemist Herman Kalckar in Copenhagen who was interested in nucleic acids and had developed an interest in phage as an experimental system. Watson's time in Copenhagen had one favorable consequence. He was able to do some experiments with Ole Maaloe (a member of the Phage Group) that were consistent with DNA being the genetic molecule. Watson had learned about these kinds of experiments the previous summer at Cold Spring Harbor. The experiments involved radioactive phosphate as a tracer and attempted to determine what molecular components of phage particles actually infect the target bacteria during viral infection. Watson never developed a constructive interaction with Kalckar, but he did accompany Kalckar to a meeting in Italy where Watson saw Maurice Wilkins talk about his X-ray diffraction data for DNA. Watson was now certain that DNA had a definite molecular structure that could be solved.[3] A detailed finding guide to Watson's experimental research conducted at Indiana University, Statens seruminstitute (Denmark), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and Harvard University is available online.

In 1951 the chemist Linus Pauling published his model of the protein alpha helix, a result that grew out of Pauling's relentless efforts in X-ray crystallography and molecular model building. Watson now had the desire to learn to perform X-ray diffraction experiments so that he could work to determine the structure of DNA. That summer, Luria met John Kendrew and arranged for a new postdoctoral research project for Watson in England.

Structure of DNA

James D. Watson

Discovery of the DNA Double Helix
JamesDWatson.jpg

James Watson in the lab.
Francis Crick
Rosalind Franklin
James Watson
Maurice Wilkins
Cavendish Laboratory
King's College London
Photo 51

In October 1951, James Watson moved to Clare College, Cambridge and started at the Cavendish Laboratory, the physics department of the University of Cambridge, with a fellowship from the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis. Here he shared an office with Francis Crick where they found they had similar scientific interests and initiated a collaboration to discover the structure of DNA. Crick soon solved the mathematical equations that govern helical diffraction theory; Watson knew all of the key DNA results of the Phage Group.[4]

In late 1951 Crick and Watson began a series of informal exchanges with Maurice Wilkins during which some of Franklin's findings were given to Watson and Crick by Wilkins without Franklin's permission or knowledge. In November, Watson attended a seminar by Rosalind Franklin. She spoke about the X-ray diffraction data she had collected with Raymond Gosling. The data indicated that DNA was a helix of some sort. Soon after this seminar, Watson and Crick constructed an incorrect molecular model of DNA in which the phosphate backbones were on the inside of the structure. Franklin asserted that the phosphates almost certainly were on the outside, not the inside. Watson and Crick eventually came to see that she was right and used this information in their final determination of the helical structure. In 1952, the final details of the chemical structure of the DNA backbone were determined by biochemists like Alexander Todd.

During 1952, Crick and Watson had been asked not to work on making molecular models of the structure of DNA.[5] Instead, Watson's official assignment was to perform X-ray diffraction experiments on tobacco mosaic virus. Tobacco mosaic virus was the first virus to be identified (1886) and purified (1935). Since electron microscopy revealed that virus crystals form inside infected plants, it made sense to isolate this virus for study by X-ray crystallography. Early X-ray diffraction images for tobacco mosaic virus had been collected before World War II. By 1954, Watson had deduced from his X-ray diffraction images that the tobacco mosaic virus had a helical structure.[6] Despite his official assignment, the lure of solving the puzzle of DNA structure continued to tantalize Watson; with his friend Crick, he continued to think about how to determine the structure of DNA.

In April 1952, Watson's PhD research adviser, Luria, was to speak at a meeting in England. However, Luria was not allowed to travel due to cold war fears over his Marxist leanings. Watson used Luria's speaking slot to talk about his own work with radioactive DNA and the results of others in the Phage Group that indicated the genetic material of phages was DNA. It has been recorded that during this meeting Watson was discussing with others prior discoveries by other researchers such as the calculated width of the B-form DNA molecule as determined by X-ray diffraction studies. By 1952 estimates from X-ray data and electron microscopy agreed that the diameter of DNA was about 2 nanometers.

Watson and Crick benefited from two travel-related strokes of luck in 1952. First, Erwin Chargaff visited England in 1952 and inspired Watson and Crick to learn more about nucleotide biochemistry. There are four nucleobases: guanine (G), cytosine (C), adenine (A) and thymine (T) in DNA. The so-called Chargaff ratios experimental results indicated that the amount of G is equal to C and the amount of A is equal to T. Jerry Donohue explained to Watson and Crick the correct structures of the four bases. The second travel-related event was that Linus Pauling's plans to visit England were disrupted. His planned visit was canceled for political reasons and he never gained access to the King's College X-ray diffraction data for DNA until it was published in 1953.

In 1953, Crick and Watson were given permission by their lab director and Wilkins to again try to make a structural model of DNA. At this time, Crick and Watson became aware of a research progress report containing some of Franklin's findings. This report contained the data that she had previously discussed in her research seminar of November 1951. Crick and Watson continued to make use of Franklin's results in their thinking about the structure of DNA.

Breakthrough

Watson's key contribution was in discovering the nucleotide base pairs that are the key to the structure and function of DNA. This key discovery was made in the Pauling "tradition", by playing with molecular models.

A GC base pair demonstrating three intermolecular hydrogen bonds
Enlarge
A GC base pair demonstrating three intermolecular hydrogen bonds
An AT base pair demonstrating two intermolecular hydrogen bonds
Enlarge
An AT base pair demonstrating two intermolecular hydrogen bonds

Since he would have to wait for the Cavendish machine shop to make tin models of the four nucleobases, Watson, on February 21, 1953 made a molecule model of each using a straight edge, an exacto knife, white cardboard and paste. These molecules are all flat in their ring structures, so Watson could slide the cardboard models around on a table and examine how they might interact and fit together. After looking at the possible arrangements of his cardboard molecule models, Watson soon realized that the larger two-ring A and G nucleobases (technically referred to as purines) could be paired with the smaller one-ring T and C nucleobases, known as pyrimidines. Watson examined the possibility of hydrogen bonds between the pairs of purines and pyrimidines. After moving the A and T molecules around on the table he sat at, he brought together the distal (relative to its five-member ring) nitrogen of the A and the correct nitrogen-based hydrogen of T. Fortunately, the A and T were lying on the table both "face up" in that they were in the orientation as they occur in DNA and Watson then noticed the possibility of the second hydrogen bond involving an oxygen atom. He quickly saw that the other pair, C's nitrogen and G's nitrogen-based hydrogen had a similar relationship and that those two molecules formed three such bonds. As the accompanying diagram indicates, all five hydrogens involved have a covalent bond to a nitrogen (which has no "double" bond) and form the weaker hydrogen bond with either a nitrogen or an oxygen that each have one double valence bond to a carbon atom.

Watson then saw that the two pairs could be superimposed on each other with similar overall structure. In particular, the hexagonal rings were equidistant and the relative orientations of the five-member rings of the "big" molecules, A and G were the same. The nitrogens with the "squiggly" lines are the ones that attach, as "ladder rungs", to the helical backbone and that these nitrogen atoms are equidistant and also superimpose in the two pairs, allowing the helical structure to be smooth. Watson sensed that too many pieces were falling into place for this to be anything but the answer. He was correct. The base pairs discovered by Watson were consistent with the biochemical data Chargaff had already published.

Nobel Prize

Diagram showing the key structural components in the chemical structure of DNA. The actual 3D structure is shown at DNA.
Enlarge
Diagram showing the key structural components in the chemical structure of DNA. The actual 3D structure is shown at DNA.

Watson and Crick proceeded to deduce the double helix structure of DNA which they submitted to the journal Nature and was subsequently published on April 25 1953.[7] Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their research on the structure of nucleic acids.[8] Some regret that Franklin did not live long enough to share in the Nobel Prize.[9]

The Double Helix

In 1968 Watson wrote The Double Helix, one of the Modern Library's 100 best non-fiction books. The account is the sometimes painful story of not only the discovery of the structure of DNA, but the personalities, conflicts and controversy surrounding their work. It was originally to be published by Harvard University Press, but after objections from both Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, among others, Watson's home university where he had been a member of the biology faculty since 1955, dropped the book and it was instead published by a commercial publisher, an incident which caused some scandal. Watson's original title was to have been "Honest Jim," in part to raise the ethical questions of bypassing Franklin to gain access to her X-ray diffraction data before they were published. Watson seems to have never been particularly bothered by the way things turned out. If all that mattered was beating Pauling to the structure of DNA, then Franklin's cautious approach to analysis of the X-ray data was simply an obstacle that Watson needed to run around. Wilkins and others were there at the right time to help Watson and Crick do so. Also in 1968, Watson married Elizabeth Lewis and became the Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Between 1970 and 1972 Watson's two sons were born and by 1974 the young family made CSHL their permanent residence.

The Double Helix changed the way the public viewed scientists and the way they work.[10] In the same way, Watson's first textbook, The Molecular Biology of the Gene, set a new standard for textbooks, particularly through the use of concept heads—brief declarative subheadings. Its style has been emulated by almost all succeeding textbooks. His next great success was Molecular Biology of the Cell, although here his role was more that of coordinator of an outstanding group of scientist-writers. His third textbook was Recombinant DNA, which used the ways in which genetic engineering has brought us so much new information about how organisms function. All the textbooks are still in print.

Genome project

In 1988, Watson's achievement and success led to his appointment as the Head of the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health, a position he held until 1992. Watson left the Genome Project after conflicts with the new NIH Director, Bernadine Healy. Watson was opposed to Healy's attempts to acquire patents on gene sequences, and any ownership of the "laws of nature." Two years before stepping down from the Genome Project, he had stated his opinion on this long and ongoing controversy which he saw as an illogical barrier to research; he said, "The nations of the world must see that the human genome belongs to the world's people, as opposed to its nations." He left within weeks of the 1992 announcement that the NIH would be applying for patents on brain-specific cDNAs.[11] In 1994, Watson became President of CSHL. Dr. Francis Collins took over the role as Director of the Human Genome Project. Watson currently serves as Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. He became the second person to publish his fully sequenced genomeonline, after it was presented to him on May 31, 2007 by 454 Life Sciences Corporation in collaboration with scientists at the Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine. "I am putting my genome sequence on line to encourage the development of an era of personalized medicine, in which information contained our genomes can be used to identify and prevent disease and to create individualized medical therapies," said CSHL Chancellor Watson.[12]

Awards

  • Albert Lasker Prize
  • Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences
  • Charles A. Dana Award
  • Copley Medal of the Royal Society
  • Eli Lilly Award in Biochemistry
  • Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences
  • Gairdner Award
  • Heald Award
  • Honorary Knight of the British Empire
  • John Collins Warren Prize of the Massachusetts General Hospital
  • John J. Carty Gold Medal of the National Academy of Sciences
  • Kaul Foundation Award for Excellence
  • Liberty Medal
  • Lomonosov Medal
  • Lotos Club Medal of Merit
  • Mendel Medal
  • National Biotechnology Venture Award
  • National Medal of Science
  • New York Academy of Medicine Award
  • Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
  • Othmer Medal
  • Presidential Medal of Freedom
  • Research Corporation Prize
  • University of Chicago Medal
  • University College London Prize
  • University Medal at SUNY Stony Brook

Positions

Allen Institute for Brain Science

Dr. Watson is now the Institute advisor for the newly-formed Allen Institute for Brain Science. The Institute, located in Seattle, Washington, was founded in 2003 by Philanthropists Paul G. Allen and Jody Allen Patton as a nonprofit corporation (501(c) (3)) and medical research organization. A multidisciplinary group of neuroscientists, molecular biologists, informaticists, engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, and computational biologists have been brought together to form the scientific core of the Allen Institute. Utilizing the mouse model system, these fields have joined together to investigate expression of 20,000 genes in the adult mouse brain and to map gene expression to a cellular level beyond neuroanatomic boundaries. The data generated from this joint effort is contained in the publicly available Allen Brain Atlas application located at www.brain-map.org. Upon completion of the Allen Brain Atlas, this consortium of scientists will pursue additional questions to further our understanding of neuronal circuitry and the neuroanatomic framework that defines the functionality of the brain.

Champalimaud Foundation

In January 2007, Dr. Watson accepted the invitation of Leonor Beleza, president of the Champalimaud Foundation, to become the head of the foundation's scientific council, an advisory organ. He will be in charge of selecting the remaining council members.[13]

Controversies

James Watson (February, 2003)
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James Watson (February, 2003)

Use of King's College results

Main article: King's College (London) DNA Controversy

An enduring controversy has been generated by Watson and Crick's use of DNA X-ray diffraction data collected by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling. The controversy arose from the fact that some of Franklin's unpublished data was used by Watson and Crick in their construction of the double helix model of DNA.[14] Franklin's experimental results provided estimates of the water content of DNA crystals and these results were consistent with the two sugar-phosphate backbones being on the outside of the molecule. Franklin personally told Crick and Watson that the backbones had to be on the outside. Her identification of the space group for DNA crystals revealed to Crick that the two DNA strands were antiparallel. The X-ray diffraction images collected by Gosling and Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. Franklin's superb experimental work thus proved crucial in Watson and Crick's discovery. Watson and Crick had three sources for Franklin's unpublished data: 1) her 1951 seminar, attended by Watson, 2) discussions with Wilkins, who worked in the same laboratory with Franklin, 3) a research progress report that was intended to promote coordination of Medical Research Council-supported laboratories. Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin all worked in MRC laboratories.

Prior to publication of the double helix structure, Watson and Crick had little interaction with Franklin. Crick and Watson felt that they had benefited from collaborating with Wilkins. They offered him a co-authorship on the article that first described the double helix structure of DNA. Wilkins turned down the offer, a fact that may have led to the terse character of the acknowledgment of experimental work done at King's College in the eventual published paper. Rather than make any of the DNA researchers at King's College co-authors on the Watson and Crick double helix article, the solution that was arrived at was to publish two additional papers from King's College along with the helix paper. Biographer Brenda Maddox suggested that because of the importance of her work to Watson and Crick's model building, Franklin should have had her name on the original Watson and Crick manuscript.[15] Franklin may have never known the extent to which her unpublished data had helped in the double helix discovery. According to one critic, unprotected by libel laws, Watson's portrayal of Franklin in The Double Helix was negative, giving the appearance that she was Wilkins' assistant and was unable to interpret her own DNA data.[16].

In his book The Double Helix, Watson described being intimidated by Franklin and that they were unable to establish constructive scientific interactions during the time period when Franklin was doing DNA research. However a review of the handwritten correspondence from Franklin to Watson, located in the archives at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, reveals that the two scientists later had exchanges of constructive scientific correspondence. In fact, Franklin consulted with Watson on her Tobacco Mosaic Virus RNA research. Franklin's letters begin on friendly terms with "Dear Jim", and conclude with equally benevolent and respectful sentiments like "Best Wishes, Yours, Rosalind". As is typical with scientific research, each of the scientists published their own unique contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA in separate articles, and all of the contributors published their findings in the same volume of Nature. These classic molecular biology papers are identified as: Watson J.D. and Crick F.H.C. "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" Nature 171, 737-738 (1953).[17] Wilkins M.H.F., A.R. Stokes A.R. & Wilson, H.R."Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids" Nature 171, 738-740 (1953).[18] Franklin R. and Gosling R.G. "Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate" Nature 171, 740-741 (1953).[19] Franklin did not receive a Nobel Prize for her important contribution because the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.[20]

The wording on the DNA sculpture outside Clare College's Thirkill Court, Cambridge, England is:

On the base:

  • "These strands unravel during cell reproduction. Genes are encoded in the sequence of bases."
  • "The double helix model was supported by the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins."

On the helices:

  • "The structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson while Watson lived here at Clare."
  • "The molecule of DNA has two helical strands that are linked by base pairs Adenine - Thymine or Guanine - Cytosine."

Controversial statements

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[[Category:Current events as of {{#time:F Y|October 2007}}]]

Dr. Watson signing autographs after a speech at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on April 30, 2007.
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Dr. Watson signing autographs after a speech at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on April 30, 2007.

Watson was quoted in an article for the Sunday Times Magazine published on October 14, 2007, that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really." He claims to hope that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level."[21]

"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically," he writes. "Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."[22]

As a result the London Science Museum cancelled a talk that Watson was scheduled to give on 19 October 2007. The museum spokesperson stated that "We feel Dr. Watson has gone beyond the point of acceptable debate and we are, as a result, cancelling his talk."[23] Additionally, the Board of Trustees of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory suspended Dr. Watson's administrative responsibilities in response to the comments, according to a public statement posted on the laboratory's website. The University of Edinburgh also withdrew the invitation to Dr Watson to the "DNA, Dolly and Other Dangerous Ideas: The Destiny of 21st Century Science" Enlightenment Lecture on October 22 2007. [24]

Watson later apologized "unreservedly" and was quoted as being "mortified"[25] for the comments attributed to him, stating "I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have," he said. "To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief".[26][27]

After the apology he added: "[28]

"Right now, at my institute in the US we are working on gene-caused failures in brain development that frequently lead to autism and schizophrenia. We may also find that differences in these respective brain development genes also lead to differences in our abilities to carry out different mental tasks."

On October 19th, In an attempt to clarify his position Watson is featured in an article in The Independent

"We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things," he is quoted as saying. "The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity."

"It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science. To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers."

Hunt-Grubbe also reports that Watson has suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, hypothesizing that dark-skinned people have stronger libidos.[21][29] In 2000 Watson shocked an audience at the University of California, Berkeley, when he advanced his theory about a link between skin color and sex drive. His lecture, complete with slides of bikini-clad women, argued that extracts of melanin — which give skin its color — had been found to boost subjects' sex drive.

"That's why you have Latin lovers," he said, according to people who attended the lecture. "You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient."[30]

Watson has repeatedly supported genetic screening and genetic engineering in public lectures and interviews, arguing that stupidity is a disease and the "really stupid" bottom 10% of people should be cured.[31] He has also suggested that beauty could be genetically engineered, saying "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."[31]

He has been quoted in The Sunday Telegraph as stating: "If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she doesn't want a homosexual child, well, let her."[32] The biologist Richard Dawkins wrote a letter to The Independent claiming that Watson's position was misrepresented by The Sunday Telegraph article and that Watson also considered the possibility of having a heterosexual child to be just as valid as any other reason for abortion.[33]

On the issue of obesity, Watson has also been quoted as saying: "Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them."[34]

According to Watson at the 2003 conference,[35] "DNA: 50 years of the Double Helix," held in Cambridge, England, "Now perhaps it's a pretty well kept secret that one of the most uninspiring acts of Cambridge University over this past century was to turn down Francis Crick when he applied to be the Professor of Genetics, in 1958. Now there may have been a series of arguments which led them to reject Francis. But it really was stupid. It was really saying, Don't push us to the frontier. That's what it was saying."

Watson also had quite a few disagreements with Craig Venter regarding his use of EST fragments while Venter worked at NIH. Venter went on to found Celera genomics and continued his feud with Watson through the privately funded venture. Watson was even quoted as calling Venter "Hitler."[36]

References

  1. ^ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962. Nobel Prize Site for Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962.
  2. ^ "The properties of x-ray inactivated bacteriophage. I. Inactivation by direct effect." by J. D. Watson in Journal of Bacteriology (1950) volume 60 page 697-718. The full text of this article is available for download in PDF format.
  3. ^ Judson, H. F. (1979) The Eighth Day of Creation. Makers of the Revolution in Biology. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-6712-2540-5. See chapter 2.
  4. ^ Most of the biographical account comes from Watson's 1968 autobiographical account, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. The book was very controversial when it came out, though, as many of the participants still living disputed its account, especially of the role and personality of Franklin. In fact, the originally intended publisher, Harvard University Press, turned the manuscript down. For an edition which contains critical responses, book reviews, and copies of the original scientific papers, see James D. Watson, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, Norton Critical Edition, Gunther Stent, ed. (New York: Norton, 1980).
  5. ^ Bragg's decision near the end of 1951 that Watson and Crick should not work on DNA structure is described on page 128 of The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology by Horace Freeland Judson published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (1996) ISBN 0-87969-478-5. Bragg gave Watson permission to start DNA model work again in January 1953 (see page 162).
  6. ^ "The structure of tobacco mosaic virus. I. X-ray evidence of a helical arrangement of sub-units around the longitudinal axis" by J. D. Watson in Biochim Biophys Acta. (1954) volume 13 pages 10-19. Entrez PubMed 13140277
  7. ^ Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids by James D. Watson and Francis H. Crick. Nature 171, 737–738 (1953).
  8. ^ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962. Nobel Prize citation for Crick, Watson and Wilkins.
  9. ^ Judson, Horace. "No Nobel Prize for Whining", New York Times, 2003-10-20. Retrieved on 2007-08-03. 
  10. ^ The Norton Critical Edition of Watson's The Double Helix". The Preface by Gunther Stent describes the impact and wide readership of Watson's book. ISBN 0-393-95075-1.
  11. ^ Robert Pollack (1994). Signs of Life: The Language and Meanings of DNA. Houghton Mifflin Company, 95. 
  12. ^ "Watson Genotype Viewer Now On Line", Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2003-6-28. Retrieved on 2007-9-16. 
  13. ^ Teresa Firmino. "Nobel James Watson vai presidir ao conselho científico da Fundação Champalimaud", Público, 2007-03-20. Retrieved on 2007-03-22. (Portuguese) 
  14. ^ Chapter 3 of The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology by Horace Freeland Judson published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (1996) ISBN 0-87969-478-5.
  15. ^ Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox. (2002) ISBN 0-06-018407-8.
  16. ^ http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-56/iss-3/p42.html
  17. ^ http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/watsoncrick.pdf
  18. ^ http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/wilkins.pdf
  19. ^ http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/franklingosling.pdf
  20. ^ Statutes of the Nobel Foundation, § 4
  21. ^ a b Charlotte Hunt-Grubbe, The elementary DNA of dear Dr Watson, Times Online, October 14, 2007
  22. ^ DNA Discoverer: Blacks Less Intelligent Than Whites, foxnews.com, October 18 2007
  23. ^ Museum drops race row scientist bbc
  24. ^ http://www.cshl.edu/public/releases/07_statement2.html
  25. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/10/18/nobel.apology/index.html
  26. ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2687364.ece
  27. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7052416.stm
  28. ^ James Watson: To question genetic intelligence is not racism, Independent, October 19, 2007
  29. ^ http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7252/12
  30. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_re_eu/britain_controversial_scientist
  31. ^ a b Shaoni Bhattacharya. "Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer", NewScientist.com news service, 2003-02-28. Retrieved on 2007-06-24. 
  32. ^ [1], The Telegraph
  33. ^ [2]
  34. ^ [3]
  35. ^ Conference transcript.
  36. ^ (The Genome War, J. Shreeve)

Further reading

  • Chadarevian, S. (2002) Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II. Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-57078-6
  • Chargaff, E. (1978) Heraclitean Fire. New York: Rockefeller Press.
  • Chomet, S., ed., (1994) D.N.A.: Genesis of a Discovery London: Newman-Hemisphere Press.
  • Crick, Francis (1988) What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (Basic Books reprint edition, 1990) ISBN 0-465-09138-5
  • Friedburg, Errol C. 2005) "The Writing Life of James D. Watson". "Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press" ISBN 0879697008
  • Hunter, G. (2004) Light Is A Messenger: the life and science of William Lawrence Bragg. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-852921-X
  • Inglis, J., Sambrook, J. & Witkowski, J. A. (eds.) Inspiring Science: Jim Watson and the Age of DNA. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. 2003. ISBN 978-087969698-6.
  • Judson, H. F. (1996). The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology, Expanded edition. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. ISBN 0879694785
  • Maddox, B. (2003). Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0060985089
  • Robert Olby; 1974) The Path to The Double Helix: Discovery of DNA. London: MacMillan. ISBN 0-486-68117-3; Definitive DNA textbook, with foreword by Francis Crick, revised in 1994 with a 9 page postscript.
  • Robert Olby; (2003) "Quiet debut for the double helix" Nature 421 (January 23): 402-405.
  • R