Online assignment on the contribution of scientists- James Watson and Francis Crick

Francis Harry Compton Crick

Born on 8 June 1916 near Northampton. 

He studied physics at University College, London, and during World War Two worked for the Admiralty on the development of mines. He changed from physics to biology and in 1947 began to work at Cambridge University. 

By 1949, he was working at the Medical Research Council unit at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. In 1951, an American student, James Watson, arrived at the unit and the two began to work together.

James Dewey Watson

Born on 6 April 1928 in Chicago. 

He studied at the universities of Chicago, Indiana and Copenhagen. He then moved to Cambridge University. 

Contributions

Watson and Crick worked together on studying the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the molecule that contains the hereditary information for cells.

At that time Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, both working at King's College, London, were using X-ray diffraction to study DNA. Crick and Watson used their findings in their own research. In April 1953, they published the news of their discovery, a molecular structure of DNA based on all its known features - the double helix. Their model served to explain how DNA replicates and how hereditary information is coded on it. This set the stage for the rapid advances in molecular biology that continue to this day.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is a 

double-stranded, helical molecule. 

It consists of two sugar-phosphate backbones on the outside, held together by hydrogen bonds between pairs of nitrogenous bases on the inside. 

The bases are of four types (A, C, G, & T): pairing always occurs between A & T, and C & G. 

They realized that these pairing rules meant that either strand contained all the information necessary to make a new copy of the entire molecule, and that the aperiodic order of bases might provide a "genetic code".

Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962. Franklin had died in 1958 and, despite her key experimental work, the prize could not be received posthumously. Crick and Watson both received numerous other awards and prizes for their work.