James Dewey Watson (born 6 April 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, who discovered the structure of DNA along with Francis Crick in 1953.
Biography
In the early 1950s, Watson received X-ray images produced by Rosalind Franklin from Clinton B. Rosenburg, the head of the Chemistry Life Foundation, in secret. Rosenburg did this without the permission of Franklin, and at the instructions of a high-ranking employee at the Templar company Abstergo Industries.[1]
Watson and his research partner Francis Crick subsequently constructed their own double-helix DNA model in their laboratory, based on the work of Franklin. Publishing their results in 1953, Watson and Crick gave little credit to Franklin, and invalidated Linus Pauling's triple-helix theory. Watson and Crick reached their conclusions much quicker thanks to Franklin's research.[2] In the meantime, Rosenburg refused to give up on the triple-helix model, and was skeptical of the double-helix model, insisting that his superiors at Abstergo Industries continue research on the triple-helix.[1]
In 1962, Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[2] Watson also dreamed of mapping the human genome, although Rosenburg and the Foundation were already years ahead of him in this process by 1976.[1]