Watson, James (1928–)

American scientist who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery of the structure of DNA. Watson helped Crick and Wilkins to determine the molecular structure of nucleic acids, thus advancing the understanding of how genetic information is passed on. Starting with the attribution of the Nobel Prize, Watson's career has never eschewed controversy and the scientist's problematic views on genetically modified food, homosexuality, and genetic engineering have received wide press coverage.

Watson was born on April 6, 1928, in Chicago. Due to his precocity as a student, he gained entrance to the University of Chicago at 15 and obtained his B.Sc. in zoology in 1947. His Ph.D. application was turned down by both Harvard and the California Institute of Technology, institutions where Watson would teach later in his life. Watson was accepted by Indiana University where he worked on a Ph.D. in genetics and came into contact with important figures in the field such as Salvador Luria and Max Delbrück. Through them, Watson came into contact with the so-called Phage Group, which challenged the conventional notions of DNA.

After graduating with a Ph.D. in zoology in 1950, Watson went to Europe for his postdoctoral research, first to Denmark and then to England. In 1951, Watson started working with Francis Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, a collaboration which eventually led to the discovery of the helical structure of DNA only a year and a half later. Using the x-ray crystallography experiments of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins which had been carried out at King's College, Watson and Crick published their results on DNA structure in the April 25, 1953, issue of Nature. The model of the DNA as a double helix revolutionized research in the emerging fields of molecular genetics and biochemistry. It also sparked controversy as Watson and Crick used data obtained from another laboratory.

Watson returned to the United States where he obtained a teaching position at Harvard and set out to write The Double Helix, his personal account of the DNA discovery. Dropped by Harvard University Press for its frank and, at times, brash descriptions of colleagues and controversies, the book was published in 1968 by a commercial press. That same year, Watson was appointed Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), where he proved his fund-raising skills and became a vocal advocate for freedom of scientific research. Thanks to his directorship, [Page 1757]the CSHL turned out to be one of the leading centers in molecular biology.

Watson's impressive record as a scientific researcher and his success as an administrator led to his appointment as Head of the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1988. He resigned from this position after four years due to disagreements with the newly appointed NIH director, Bernadine Healy. In 1994, he also resigned from Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, remaining its president for other 10 years and then assuming the title of Chancellor.

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