In his letter Crick responded to Klug's reports on recent conferences devoted to DNA sequencing and structure, and concluded that the time had come to determine which fraction of the DNA base sequence coded for proteins. When Crick embarked on the project to decipher the genetic code during the 1950s, he had made the unspoken assumption that if not all, then most of the DNA sequence coded for protein. By the mid-1970s, researchers had found that the human genome was much more complex, that long stretches of it do not code for protein, but rather have regulatory functions--or have no apparent function at all.
Crick also mentioned that he was resigning from the Medical Research Council, effective March 31, 1977, to join the faculty of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Item is a photocopy.
Number of Image Pages:
3 (859,941 Bytes)
Date:
1977-03-30 (March 30, 1977)
Creator:
Crick, Francis
Recipient:
Klug, Aaron
Source:
Original Repository: Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
Letter from Aaron Klug to Francis Crick (March 11, 1977)