Inspiring Science: Jim Watson and the Age of DNAJohn R. Inglis, Joseph Sambrook, Jan Anthony Witkowski For James D. Watson, the year 2003 was momentous: The 50th anniversary of the discovery, with Francis Crick, of the DNA double helix; the 35th anniversary of the publication of his best–selling memoir of the discovery, The Double Helix;the 35th anniversary of his appointment as Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an institution he molded into a research and education center of international renown and prestige: and the year in which the sequencing of the human genome was completed, a project of unprecedented international effort and coordination that Watson got off the ground and sustained during its first, critical years. In the course of his 75 years, Watson has achieved a reputation as outspoken, capricious, abrasive, and ruthless in pursuing his visionary goals. Few other scientists have achieved his celebrity status, or enjoyed it so much, without losing professional credibility. Yet behind the public notoriety there is a complexity apparent only to those who know Watson as a colleague, mentor, inspiration, and friend. This book gives voice to 43 of these individuals—people of distinction who have worked with Watson as a scientist, educator, author, administrator, and government official. Their essays cover much of his scientific life and, taken together, create a portrait of a complex man whose originality and force of will have produced extraordinary achievements. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 45 | |
Our Work on Virus Structure | 57 |
A Letter to Jim January 14 2002 | 71 |
The Complementary Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid | 87 |
A DAY IN JUNE | 109 |
Watson | 133 |
Flowers and Phage | 159 |
Life with Jim | 243 |
A View from the Trenches | 257 |
Jim as a Mentor 19711974 | 273 |
Just Jim | 293 |
CSHL in Transition | 315 |
Origin of Concatemeric T7 DNA | 329 |
Robertson Pulling and Grace | 349 |
SECTION V GENOMES | 363 |
When Ribosomes Were King | 173 |
Growing Up Around Jim | 189 |
Watson at Harvard 19561976 | 203 |
Unstable Ribonucleic Acid Revealed by Pulse Labelling of Escherichia coli | 217 |
IV COLD SPRING HARBOR | 225 |
COMMUNICATING SCIENCE | 415 |
Endnotes | 455 |
Watson | 477 |
Common terms and phrases
Acad active phage adenine asked atoms bacteria bacteriophage bases became biochemistry Biol Board Caltech Cambridge cancer cDNA cells Center chains chemistry chromosomes cloning Cold Spring Harbor coli Committee concatemers course Courtesy CSHL Archives cytosine Department diffraction Director discovery double helix Dulbecco early ELSI enzyme experiments fiber fibre axis Francis Crick funds Gamow gene genetic Genome Research graduate student Harvard helical Hershey Human Genome Project hydrogen bonds idea inactivation infected Institute interest JAMES DEWEY WATSON Jim Watson Jim's later lecture Luria lysis Max Delbrück meeting molecular biology molecules Müller-Hill National Nature Nobel Prize nucleic acid nucleotides oncogenes pair paper particles Pauling phosphate postdoc Proc protein published purine pyrimidine recombinant DNA replication repressor ribosomes Salvador Luria scientific scientists sequencing Spring Harbor Laboratory structure of DNA summer Symposium synthesis T2r+ tion Trustees University virus Watson J.D. Wilkins X-ray York Zinder
Popular passages
Page 187 - we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”) Soon it was learned that the nucleotide pairs form a code so simple that it can be read off by a child. The implication of these and other revelations rippled into organismic and evolutionary biology, at least among the younger and more entrepreneurial researchers. If
Page 85 - suggests very strongly that there are two. The other biologically important feature is the manner in which the two chains are held together. This is done by hydrogen bonds between the bases, as shown schematically in Fig. 3. The bases are joined together in pairs, a single base from one chain being hydrogen-bonded to a single base from the
Page 280 - It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.
Page 85 - This figure Is purely diagrammatIc. The two ribbons symbolize the two phosphatesugar chains, and the horizontal rods the pairs of bases holdIng the chains together. The vertical line marks the fibre axis Until now, however, no evidence has been presented to show how it might carry out the
Page 82 - as unproved until it has been checked against more exact results. Some of these are given in the following communications. We were not aware of the details of the results presented there when we devised our structure, which rests mainly
Page 86 - to solve one of the fundamental biological problemsthe molecular basis of the template needed for genetic replication. The hypothesis we are suggesting is that the template is the pattern of bases formed by one chain of the deoxyribonucleic acid and that the gene contains a complementary pair of such templates. One of us
Page 86 - with cytosine. The way in which these are joined together is shown in Figs. 4 and 5. A given pair can be either way round. Adenine, for example, can occur on either chain; but when it does, it.s partner on the other chain must always be thymine. This pairing is strongly supported by the recent analytical
Page 126 - the bonding positions, and none at the other, instead of one in each. A given pair can be either way round. Adenine, for example, can occur on either chain, but when it does its partner on the other chain must always be thymine. This is possible because the two
Page 82 - 5 on deoxyribose nucleic acid are insufficient for a rigorous test of our structure. So far as we can tell, it is roughly compatible with the experimental data, but it must be