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Double helix anniversary
DNA
BIOLOGY IN PICTURES
Double
helix anniversary
“A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid ’ by JD Watson and FHC Crick was published 40 years ago, on 25 April 1953, in Nature. Sydney Brenner recalls his preview of the structure and meeting the authors. When I went to Oxford in October 1952 to work on bacteriophagewith Hinshelwood, it was with the intention of seeingwhether physical chemistry could provide help in solving biological problems. I should havegone to study molecular biology but the subject did not yet exist. From my past experience in cytology and cytogenetics,I knew that DNA was the material basis of heredity and that RNA was important for protein synthesis.I had read Schrddinger’sbook (What is Life? Cambridge; 1944) but, more importantly, I had read von Neuman’s article (in Cerebral Mechanisms
in Behaviour:
the Hixon
symposium.
Edited by Jeffress IA New York:Hafner Publishing Compaq 1951) on the theory of self-reproducing machines. Beyond this, I had many nebulous ideas on how nucleic acids might exert their function and on how we might test them, including one ridiculous proposal that the structure of nucleic acids could be solved by dichroism measurements of DNA complexed with acridine dyes. I met Jack Dunitz and Leslie Orgel in Oxford and we had many interesting discussions on these topics. It was Jack who told me that the structure of DNA had probably
218
@ Current
Biology
been solved by two people in Cambridge, Francis Crick and Jim Watson, and I can remember trying to understand Jacks explanation of Francis’ work on helical diffraction. On a chilly morning in April 1953,with Jack, Leslie and another crystallographer,I went to Cambridge and saw the model and met Francis and Jim. It was the most exciting day of my life. The double helix was a revelatory experience; for me, everything fell into place and my future scientific life was decided there and then. When the paper appeareda few weeks later, it was not well received by the establishment, composed largely of professional biochemists. They could not see, at the time, how profoundly it would change their subject by offering us a framework for studying the chemistry of biological information. Sydney Brenner. (Text reprinted from Outstanding Papers in Biology, Current Biology Ltd, 1992; photograph courtesy MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.)
1993,
Vol 3 No 4
BIOLOGY IN PICTURES
Double
helix anniversary
“A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid ’ by JD Watson and FHC Crick was published 40 years ago, on 25 April 1953, in Nature. Sydney Brenner recalls his preview of the structure and meeting the authors. When I went to Oxford in October 1952 to work on bacteriophagewith Hinshelwood, it was with the intention of seeingwhether physical chemistry could provide help in solving biological problems. I should havegone to study molecular biology but the subject did not yet exist. From my past experience in cytology and cytogenetics,I knew that DNA was the material basis of heredity and that RNA was important for protein synthesis.I had read Schrddinger’sbook (What is Life? Cambridge; 1944) but, more importantly, I had read von Neuman’s article (in Cerebral Mechanisms
in Behaviour:
the Hixon
symposium.
Edited by Jeffress IA New York:Hafner Publishing Compaq 1951) on the theory of self-reproducing machines. Beyond this, I had many nebulous ideas on how nucleic acids might exert their function and on how we might test them, including one ridiculous proposal that the structure of nucleic acids could be solved by dichroism measurements of DNA complexed with acridine dyes. I met Jack Dunitz and Leslie Orgel in Oxford and we had many interesting discussions on these topics. It was Jack who told me that the structure of DNA had probably
218
@ Current
Biology
been solved by two people in Cambridge, Francis Crick and Jim Watson, and I can remember trying to understand Jacks explanation of Francis’ work on helical diffraction. On a chilly morning in April 1953,with Jack, Leslie and another crystallographer,I went to Cambridge and saw the model and met Francis and Jim. It was the most exciting day of my life. The double helix was a revelatory experience; for me, everything fell into place and my future scientific life was decided there and then. When the paper appeareda few weeks later, it was not well received by the establishment, composed largely of professional biochemists. They could not see, at the time, how profoundly it would change their subject by offering us a framework for studying the chemistry of biological information. Sydney Brenner. (Text reprinted from Outstanding Papers in Biology, Current Biology Ltd, 1992; photograph courtesy MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.)
1993,
Vol 3 No 4