As Crick noted in this letter, the details of the structure of DNA were not yet conclusively established in 1977, beyond the base pairing and the antiparallel arrangement of the sugar-phosphate backbones, more than two decades after Watson and Crick proposed that it was a double helix. In the absence of definitive experimental proof, some researchers continued to suggest alternative structures. In this instance, Crick responded to an argument by Rodley that the two chains of DNA were straight rather than helical. He found such a structure unlikely, but nonetheless suggested how experimental proof for it might be produced, if at all.
Item is a photocopy.
Number of Image Pages:
3 (272,014 Bytes)
Date:
1977-05-11 (May 11, 1977)
Creator:
Crick, Francis
Recipient:
Rodley, G. A.
Source:
Original Repository: Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
