Biography of James Watson - James Dewey Watson

(1928-04-06 - Unknown)

James Dewey Watson
Biophysical and award us Nobel

He was born on April 6, 1928 in Chicago.
He entered the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. He earned his degree in 1946 and stayed one more year to take classes of zoology. In 1947 it became the Graduate School of the University of Indiana, where she worked as Herman Müller, awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on x-ray -induced mutations.
Watson was influenced by Delbrück and Luria, of the Phage group. Luria persuaded him to carry out a research project on the effects of X rays on phage and, in May 1950, at the age of 22, Watson completed his doctorate. In 1950, he joined Harvard University in 1955.
He worked with the British biophysicist Francis Crick in the laboratory Cavendish, University of Cambridge from 1951 until 1953. Taking as a basis the work carried out in the laboratory by the British biophysicist Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick unraveled the double helix structure of the molecule of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), substance that transmits genetic characteristics from one generation to the next. The research provided the means for understanding how the hereditary information is copied.
They discovered that the DNA molecule is made up of linked chemical compounds called nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of three parts: a sugar called Deoxyribose, a compound of phosphorus and one of four possible nitrogenous bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) or cytosine (C). Then Arthur Kornberg provided experimental evidence of the accuracy of his model. In recognition of his work on the DNA molecule, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared in 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine.
In 1968 he was director of the laboratory of quantitative biology of Cold Spring Harbor, New York. He wrote The Double Helix (the double helix, 1968), history of the discovery of the structure of DNA. He participated in the Human genome at the national institutes of health project.