On February 28, 1953, two scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, announced they had figured out the structure of DNA. DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms, and understanding its shape was a massive breakthrough.
Watson and Crick weren’t the only ones who worked on this. In the early 1950s, many scientists were working hard to solve this scientific mystery. Even the famous chemist Linus Pauling had suggested a model for DNA, but it turned out to be wrong. This mistake motivated Watson and Crick to work even faster to find the right answer first.
In February, they determined that DNA is shaped like a double helix. Imagine a ladder that has been twisted into a spiral, that is a double helix. They also discovered how it works, DNA can copy itself by splitting its strands apart, with each side acting as a template for a new one.
According to James Watson, Francis Crick was so excited that he walked into a local pub called The Eagle and told everyone they had found what he called the secret of life.While that might sound dramatic, it was actually quite true. By finding this structure, they explained how genetic information is stored and passed down from parents to children.
Watson and Crick had a lot of help they didn’t fully acknowledge at the time. Another researcher named Rosalind Franklin had taken a famous X-ray photograph known as “Photo 51.” This photo had proved that DNA was a helix.
A colleague showed this photo to Watson and Crick without Franklin’s knowledge. This piece of evidence was the final clue they needed to finish their model. Sadly, when Watson, Crick, and their colleague Maurice Wilkins won the Nobel Prize in 1962, Franklin was not included. She had passed away in 1958 and never knew how important her work was to their success.
The discovery was officially published in Nature magazine in April 1953. Since then, it has revolutionized medicine and biology. Because of this discovery, we now have screening for genetic diseases before babies are born, the ability to identify human remains, better treatments for diseases like AIDS and DNA testing to help solve crimes.
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