50th Anniversary of DNA's Discovery

nxg125 writes "The New York Times has a section on the 50th anniversary of Watson & Crick's discovery of DNA. Lots of good articles about the discovery, Watson & Crick themselves, and where this information will take us from here."

Comments

Rather,

[Black Parrot]

50 years since the discovery of its structure.

Re:Rather,

[tbmaddux]

50 years since the discovery of its structure.

Specifically the double-helical structure. Linus Pauling had done earlier theoretical work predicting the formation of helices, but wound up on the wrong track trying to make a triple-helix work for DNA.

Re:Rather,

[Milo Fungus]

And to nitpick even further, Watson and Crick didn't discover the structure. They formulated a model for the structure which was the first to accurately describe all of the scientific observations made up to that time. X-ray crystallography couldn't get high enough resolution to unambiguously prove the model for another few decades. At the time they proposed the model, there was not sufficient data to be absolutely certain about its accuracy. In other words, they did some masterful guesswork. The remarkable thing about W&C's original model was how accurate it was.

Dr. Crick later postulated the central dogma of molecular biology, which states that DNA is replicated for inheritance, is transcribed to RNA, and that RNA is translated to protein. The central dogma is now well-established, but was certainly not when Crick proposed it. The role of RNA in protein synthesis was rather foggy at the time. Crick was a remarkable scientist who certainly deserved the Nobel Prize. The field of molecular biology has benefitted immeasureably from his contributions.

The same goes for Linus Pauling. W&C beat him to the DNA structure, but he made some great contributions to the field nonetheless. Pauling's DNA structure was based upon the protonated form of DNA - where the phosphodiester backbone is electrically neutral. There is actually a -1 charge on phosphates in DNA, which is one of the reasons why the backbone wraps around the outside of the molecule. In his triple helix model the backbone was on the inside of the molecule, with the bases pointing out. This would made sense if the phophates were neutral, because they wouldn't repel each other. Having the bases on the outside also made sense because if the information was contained in the bases, then they ought to be accessible. He also had the wrong tautomeric forms of the bases, so the base pairing with hydrogen bonds wouldn't work properly. His was a good model. He was doing some good work. Just barking up the wrong tree.

Pauling's greatest contributions were in protein structure. He proposed the alpha helix secondary structural element, which is found everywhere in proteins. If folding@home makes any progress whatsoever, they are building on the work of Linus Pauling.

end nitpick;

Discovery of DNA prevented by co-ed universities?

[girl_geek_antinomy]

I remember hearing a wonderful interview with Watson a few years ago - he was saying that if Cambridge had been more co-ed at the time (there were only three Womens' olleges, everywhere else was male) he'd have been too busy trying to get a girlfriend to spend all that time elucidating the structure of DNA.

50th anniversary rememberance..

[cosmic_whiner]

How come it's always only Watson and Crick - why dont people remember Maurice Wilkins (who shared the nobel prize with them) and Rosalind Franklin (who's pathbreaking Xray work led to the double helix)

Re:50th anniversary rememberance..

[tbmaddux]

... why don't people remember ... Rosalind Franklin ...

People remember "Watson and Crick" because those were the names on their paper. Wilkins declined to have his name included (d'oh!). And Franklin, she certainly does get remembered, but more for being "ripped off" (as many others have told me -- the full story is of course more complex) because she was just a post-doc, or a woman.

Re:50th anniversary rememberance..

[Uart]

because franklin was wrong. her x-ray diffraction worked, but she concluded that the nitrogenous bases were on the outside of the molecule..

Watson and Crick built a worable model, including complementary base-pairing, and they went on to describe the semiconservative method of DNA synthesis (which of course was shown to be valid).

Rosalind certainly derserves credit for her work with x-ray diffraction (and she gets it), but she didn't give the world a model of what DNA looks like

Re:50th anniversary rememberance..

[admiralh]

It's certainly true that Franklin hadn't determined the structure correctly, but remember that she was virtually isolated in Oxford (thanks mostly to her personality conflicts with Maurice Wilkins.)

Also, remember that Wilkins gave (without her knowledge or permission) Franklin's pictures to Watson. Without those pictures, it might have taken Watson longer to put the pieces together, and he wouldn't have had Franklin's high-quality (far better than Watson could do himself) pictures to verify the correctness of the structure. In that time period Franklin may have been able to deduce the structure herself, or perhaps Pauling would have gotten it right.

The real tragedy is the way Watson treated Franklin, both in his scientific work and in his writings. Watson has become the poster boy for "the end justifies the means." I can't recall ever being more disappointed in a book than I was in The Double Helix.

Re:50th anniversary rememberance..

[aluminum boy]

"Wrong" grossly understates the complexity of Franklin's interaction with Watson/Crick. She was neither wrong nor right. She was doggedly neutral in assessing the structure of DNA. Franklin was wrapped up in the notion that the structure of DNA could only be discovered through X-Ray diffraction, and not through using the modelling approach that Watson and Crick ascribed to. Was was very, very, correct, however, when she discovered that DNA has two states: "zipped" and "unzipped". That served as a direct catalyst to Watson and Crick's break through. That would have gotten her the Nobel Prize, also, if she had survived long enough (it cannot be awarded posthumously).

ages...

[Gamasta]

Well, this's been a long long time. There was that whole revolution in cell physiology in the 70s. Now we're on the computational part.

The human genome is read, but still we need to figure out: given a sequence of letters (out of the four), what protein (3-D structure, function, reactive parts etc) is associated with it? How is it cut into introns and exons? What sequence of letters can act as regulators? (without such answers I find the human genome project pretty useless)

Still, a Nobel well awarded to Watson and Crick, I'd say.

Re:Aren't we forgetting someone?

[Speed Racer]

She was the X-Ray crystallographer, not the co-discoverer. She dismissed the critical DNA type B X-Ray that she took as being unimportant. Unfortunately, nobody ever told her of the critical role her image played. Nevertheless, she was NOT a co-discoverer.

50 years!

[WPIDalamar]

Man, that just blows my mind, only 50 years of DNA. So what did they use before DNA? My grandma is older than 50... I wonder what she's made out of!

Maybe thats where that "Sugar and spice and everything nice" thing came from?

Re:Aren't we forgetting someone?

[Fluffy the Cat]

Rosalind Franklin performed some important work that was ultimately built upon by Crick, Watson and Wilkins. Given more time she'd probably have reached the same conclusions, but the others got there first.

In science, the people who make the final discovery get more credit than the people who did the work that made this discovery possible. Chauvinism has nothing to do with it.

(On the other hand, Watson is one of the less pleasant people that I've had the poor fortune to meet)

More about Rosalind Franklin

[Aces and Eights]

According to this review of her biography she was the woman who produced the x-ray data that most strongly supported the DNA structure but was not properly acknowledged for her contributions.

That reveiw further goes on to say that... According to Watson's best-selling 1968 account of the great race, The Double Helix, Franklin was not even a contender, much less a major contributor. He painted her as a mere assistant to Wilkins who "had to go or be put in her place" because she had the audacity to think she might be able to work on DNA on her own. Worse yet, she "did not emphasize her feminine qualities," lamented Watson, who refers to her only as "Rosy." "The thought could not be avoided," he concluded, "that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab."

Sounds like Watson was *quite* the ladies man =)

Now it's time to work out the folding...

[MarvinMouse]

Personally, I think everyone should join folding@home

http://folding.stanford.edu

now this is a distributed project that's producing results.

DNA is useful, and was an excellent discovery, but it's kinda like discovering the motherboard, and not understanding how any of the information is transmitted. Folding at home allows anyone with spare computer cycles to help out and understand how the proteins fold to their lowest/near lowest energy state and how they interact in the body.

Already some medical advances have been made, but there's still a long way to go.

Re:Aren't we forgetting someone?

[richie2000]

From the NYTimes page:

50 Years Later, Rosalind Franklin's X-Ray Fuels Debate
By DENISE GRADY
For some, over the years, Dr. Rosalind Franklin has come to symbolize the plight of women in science, as men close ranks against them.

Fifty years ago, a casual gesture at a laboratory in London became a defining moment in the history of science. James D. Watson was visiting King's College late one afternoon near the end of January 1953, when a researcher named Maurice Wilkins showed him an X-ray photograph of a molecule of DNA.

Describing the encounter years later in "The Double Helix," Dr. Watson wrote, "The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race."

The image was one of many by various researchers that hinted at a helix, but its singular clarity helped lead Dr. Watson and his colleague Francis Crick to the structure of DNA.

The scientist who took the picture was Dr. Rosalind Franklin, and though they cited other work she had done, Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick did not acknowledge the photograph itself, or additional work by her they had used, in their paper.

Re:DNA Decode

[CuOsc]

Nature (where the Watson and Crick paper was published) is running something on this:
http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/

The page has links to all the original 1953 articles.

Re:DNA Decode

[sam_handelman]

Watson and Crick discovered the double helical structure of DNA; this reveals the method of genetic replication.

The genetic code, which is used to convert genetic information into actual proteins which do the physical work of life, was not discovered until quite a few years later. Crick made a number of important contributions to the discovery of the genetic code, but he isn't credited with it.

Here's a writeup on the history of efforts to decipher the genetic code.

No Password

[SkreamNet]

Google Link

Life Story

[stroudie]

A while back (~1987) the bbc produced a drama-documentary called "Life Story: a double helix", about the discovery of DNA (starring Tim Piggot-Smith & Jeff Goldblum).

If you get the opportunity (it has been shown a number of times on US and UK TV), it is worth seeing as a very fair-minded and interesting history of the discovery. Unfortunately, I don't believe it is available on video, unless anyone knows different.

and software makes the bioworld go round

[johnjones]

nice that DNA was discovered while stareing at Xrays now software does a good job

info: sanger center Cambridge was one of the centers that they helped sequence human DNA

why ? Because of the ability to patent squences of DNA
(that drug companies get rich off) they had to do it before evil companies did like Celera Genomics who used a more inactuate method (shotgun) but evily patented it

welcome trust is a huge Charity that funds research in this area

ptenting DNA is silly these are naturally occuring things (squences) they where not created just discovered its all very silly

Cuba and alot of africa are starting not to recognise these patents as they would like to build the drugs that help AIDS and HIV

its sad that AIDS and HIV has to come along just to show the world that patents are stupid on DNA

anyway

here is lots of software related to DNA

regards

John Jones

Celibrate with a drink

[danormsby]

I'll be asking my local bartender to "Make mine a double Felix".

Re:Discovery of DNA prevented by co-ed universitie

[panurge]

Oh dear.

Given the number of gay men at Cambridge and the number who had been to British public (=private) schools and did not know the connection between women and the equipment below the waist, anybody heterosexual would have to be totally socially unacceptable or alternatively single by choice.

Other points of interest

[reptilicus]

Nature has a whole section on the 50th Anniversary: http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/index.html Also, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (which is run by Watson) is holding a meeting starting Wednesday night to celebrate the anniversary. The whole thing is supposed to be streamed live over the web for free. Not sure of the exact link for this, but the general site is: http://www.cshl.org/ And their 50th Anniversary site is: http://www.dna50.org/main.htm

I find it interesting...

[keyslammer]

... that /. now has on the same page a report of the 50 year anniversary of the discovery of DNA and another report of
the construction of a super-computer from DNA.

50 years from discovery to super-computer technology. Can you say "accelerating returns"? Can ya? Sure you can!

Re:Not really correct

[RafeDawg]

The original Watson/Crick paper specifically thanks Dr. R. E. Franklin. What more would you have them do?

Co-authorship on the the paper. A standard practice for someone who gives you the crucial bit of data.

Re:More on Rosalind Franklin

[Otter]

Supposedly the only reason this misconception has never been officially corrected was because the Nobel Prize cannot be awarded posthumously.

On the contrary, if anything there's speculation that the Nobel committee waited for her to die so it was uncontroversial to award the prize to Watson, Crick and Wilkins. (There being a limit of three recipients.)

Basically, however much Franklin was overlooked at the time, overcompensation and political correctness have led to her contributions being overestimated now. She had data, so did a lot of people. She might have worked out the structure on her own; Pauling certainly would have. Fundamentally, Watson and Crick made the breakthrough others didn't and they deserve credit for it.

The original model

[RDW]

If you're in London you can see the original structural model of DNA (retort clamps and all), models of several other significant molecules, some early computers, and the Apollo 10 command module (!) all in one gallery at the Science Museum:

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/

DNA structure

Re:Rosalind Franklin

[Listen Up]

Why was I marked as a Troll and as Flamebait? Doesn't anyone have a clue what happened in the past? Do the research yourself if you don't believe me. Watson and Crick did not discover the helical structure of DNA, Rosalind Franklin did. Is Slashdot full of people who either have a HS education only and/or have never learned about past scientific achievements and who actually makes the discoveries as opposed to who actually gets the credit? The facts about the history of who discovered DNA stand, whether I am marked as a troll or flamebait or not.
Go to http://www.accessexcellence.org/AB/BC/Rosalind_Fra nklin.html and read about what happened yourself (as 1 source among many).
Quote "After Randall presented Franklin's data and her unpublished conclusions at a routine seminar, her work was provided - without Randall's knowledge - to her competitors at Cambridge University, Watson and Crick. The scientists used her data and that of other scientists to build their ultimately correct and detailed description of DNA's structure in 1953...it is a tremendous shame that Franklin did not receive due credit for her essential role in this discovery, either during her lifetime or after her untimely death at age 37 due to cancer."