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Double Helix

            
            
             James Watson began his road to triumph in discovering DNA in the fall of 1951 when he visited the Cavendish laboratory of Cambridge University. He went to Cambridge to join a small group of physicist and chemist who were working on the three dimensional structures of proteins. His colleges were Francis crick, Max Perutz, and sir Lawrence Bragg. Crick was a very well known man sometimes categorized with Rutherford and Bohr. Crick had a very quick and penetrating mind, his colleges often sought after his advise. Crick was working with Perutz who was an Australian born chemist. He had been working on an X-ray diffraction and had been collecting it from hemoglobin crystals for over ten years. Helping Perutz was Sir Lawrence Bragg; Bragg was the director of Cavendish. Bragg was a noble prizewinner and one of the founders of crystallography. Before Watson's arrival to Cambridge Crick had only thought about DNA. At this time there was some evidence that DNA would unravel the true secret of life, however, it was still believed that proteins were the real mystery behind the true secret of life. There were still many scientists who believed that genes were protein molecules, and that DNA was too inconclusive. .
             At this time Francis was not prepared to jump into the world of DNA. Its importants did not seem efficient enough to abandon the world of proteins. Over time Crick and Watson began paying more attention to DNA and became more interested. Finally Crick devoted more of his time to DNA and slowly forgot about proteins. Once a door opened for Watson and Crick they began looking into it. After much time in a laboratory Watson and Crick found that proteins were no longer what they thought they could be and that DNA was indeed the basis of life. It was still very skeptical but they believed their research was going to prove the structure of DNA. .
             As their research went on Francis saw that it was hopeless and not going anywhere so he went back to proteins.


Essays Related to Double Helix

1. double helix

... prize, the Nobel Prize. Watson and Crick both shared this honor and received the Nobel prize in 1962 physiology as medicine.(Watson, 1968) James Watson later wrote a novel called "The Double Helix" which was like a diary of how the discovery was made.(Levine, 1997) Watson and Crick found the DNA diameter which is 20 A. The book displayed the hardships, conflicts, ethics, attitude ... and one would be sure two scientist find a fatal error in another scientists theory would inform him, but they did not.(Watson, 1968) In the movie "The Race for the Double Helix," Watson and Crick rejoiced ...

  • Word Count: 2348
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. The Double Helix

... structure of DNA," but the story is far more than that. More than can be found in any scientific journal or history book. The Double Helix is the story of James D. Watson's trials and tribulations in the effort to discover himself as well as DNA. This is done throught the ... molecule. She laid the basis for the quantitative study of the diffraction patterns, and after the formulation of the Watson-Crick model she demostrated that a double helix was consistent with the X-ray patterns of both the A and B forms." As Crick and Watson worked, the only real threat to them was Rosy ... that ...

  • Word Count: 1078
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Human Genome Project

... suggests it is composed of more than one strand. With this information, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the true structure of DNA in 1953 and created a 3-D model showing the double-helix (Figure3). In the model, nitrogen-containing bases (nucleotides) pair up: adenine pairs with thymine (A-T) and guanine pairs with cytosine (G-T). (Figure 4) Watson and Crick noticed that for hydrogen bonds to ... described as "semiconservative" because its molecule has one old strand and one new strand. Before replication, proteins pry the double helix open at the replication forks, where unwin...

  • Word Count: 2575
  • Approx Pages: 10
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. DNA

... guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil, which are usually abbreviated to A, G, C, T and U. Adenine and guanine are purines, which means that they have a double ring structure, while cytosine, thymine and uracil are pyrimadines, which means that they have a single ring structure. The base is connected to carbon 1 of ... two pairs had the same shape and would be held together nicely by hydrogen bonds. He was able to fit the bases into a double standard phosphate sugar backbone helix with phosphate sugar backbone on the outside. Below is a picture of James Watson (left) and Francis Crick wit...

  • Word Count: 1535
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Central Dogma

... Chargaff discovered that the %'s of DNA were equalities of A = T and G = C, which are now known as Chargaff's rules, which was then explained by the discovery of the double helix by Francis Crick and James Watson. There double helix creation not only explained Chargaff's findings but it also suggested the basic mechanism of DNA replication, which is the big part of Central Dogma. Because of the ... "new" nucleotides then match up with there corresponding nucleotide (T with A and G with C). These nucleotides then are connected to form the sugar-phosphate backbones, and are completely iden...

  • Word Count: 926
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

6. dna

... what is called a polynucleotide chain. James D. Watson and Francis Crick proved that most DNA consists of two polynucleotide chains that are twisted together into a coil, forming a double helix. Watson and Crick also discovered that in a double helix, the pairing between bases of the two chains is highly specific. Adenine is always linked to thymine by two hydrogen bonds, and guanine is always linked to ... DNA in the nucleus out to the ribosomes in the cytoplasm during transcription. (Miller, 76) This leads to the topic of replication. When DNA replicates, the two strands of the double...

  • Word Count: 1313
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

7. heredity

... what is called a polynucleotide chain. James D. Watson and Francis Crick proved that most DNA consists of two polynucleotide chains that are twisted together into a coil, forming a double helix. Watson and Crick also discovered that in a double helix, the pairing between bases of the two chains is highly specific. Adenine is always linked to thymine by two hydrogen bonds, and guanine is always linked to ... DNA in the nucleus out to the ribosomes in the cytoplasm during transcription. (Miller, 76) This leads to the topic of replication. When DNA replicates, the two strands of the double...

  • Word Count: 931
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

8. James Dewey Watson

... In 1953, Watson and Crick proposed that the structure of DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid, of which all living matter is made, was a winding helix in which pairs of bases(adenine paired with thymine and guanine paired with cytosine) held the two strands together. It contains two polynucleotide sreands wound ... The same year he recieved the Nobel Prize he married former Elizabeth Lewis and had two sons, Duncan and Rufus. After solving the double helix, Watson went on to work in Molecular Genetics, specifically viruses and RNA, another genetic information carrier. In 1956 Watson went to work ...

  • Word Count: 594
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

9. Genes and Society

... DNA double helix. Comment on how this eternal molecule has influenced on history, medicine and art. Has it been a positive or a negative influence on the well being of mankind and why? In 1953, James D Watson and Francis Crick announced that they have discovered the secret of life, the double helical ... deduced that some proteins were shaped in the form of an alpha helix and proposed that DNA was composed of three of these helixes twisted together. However, Francis and Crick rejected his statement with their discovery of the double helical structure. Hence, without their discovery, the...

  • Word Count: 1087
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

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