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On this day – February 28th

28th February 2019 @ 6:06am – by Webteam
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DNA structure defined

The double-helix structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid – one of the basic building blocks of life) was announced by Crick and Watson on February 28th, 1953.

Francis Crick (from Northampton) and James Watson (from Chicago) had been working on the DNA structure at the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge since 1951.

They made use of the work by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, both working at King's College, London, using X-ray diffraction to study DNA.. In April 1953, they published the news of their discovery, a molecular structure of DNA based on all its known features – the double helix. Their model served to explain how DNA replicates and how hereditary information is coded on it. This set the stage for the rapid advances in molecular biology that continue to this day.

Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962. Franklin had died in 1958 and, despite her key experimental work, the prize could not be received posthumously. Crick and Watson both received numerous other awards and prizes for their work.


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