Science · 1953
The structure of DNA: the double helix
Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge (England)
On 25 April 1953 the journal Nature published a short paper by James Watson and Francis Crick of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge proposing that DNA, the molecule that carries genetic information, is a double helix: two strands twisted around each other, held together by pairs of bases in which A always pairs with T and C with G. Their model drew heavily on X-ray diffraction images made at King's College London by Rosalind Franklin and her student Raymond Gosling, above all "Photo 51" of May 1952, which Maurice Wilkins showed Watson without their knowledge; papers by the King's groups appeared in the same issue.
Why it mattered
The structure explained at once how living things copy and pass on their genetic instructions, since each strand can serve as a template for a new partner, a point the paper noted in its famous last line. It transformed biology, enabled researchers to understand the genetic code, and led to the Human Genome Project, which read most of the human DNA sequence by 2003 at a cost of about $2.7 billion.
Elsewhere
Watson, Crick and Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; Franklin had died in 1958, and the Nobel Committee never makes posthumous nominations.
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