Title:

What Are the Properties of Genetic RNA?: A Note for the RNA Tie Club

Creator:

Crick, Francis, 1916-2004
Brenner, Sydney

Date:

May 1960

Description:

In this note, which remained in manuscript form and was never circulated, Crick and Brenner came to terms with the results of the famous "PaJaMo" experiment of Arthur Pardee, Francois Jacob, and Jacques Monod, which implied that ribosomal RNA could not be, as had long been assumed, the messenger that carried genetic information from DNA in the cell nucleus to the ribosome, the site of protein synthesis in the cytoplasm of the cell. Instead, Crick and Brenner here announced a new "messenger hypothesis," first developed at a famous meeting in Cambridge with Francois Jacob and others on Good Friday, 1960. According to the messenger hypothesis, genetic instructions were relayed by a distinct form of messenger RNA, which had in fact been unwittingly observed by researchers before, and which was soon to be purposefully isolated in the laboratory. This profound insight cleared the way for the elucidation of the genetic code.

Original Repository:

The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers

Location:

Box: 81. Folder: PP/CRI/H/2/41

Rights:

Reproduced with permission of the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. and http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/

Genre:

Articles

Subject:

Genetic Code and RNA

Format:

Text

Extent:

20 pages

Language:

English

Legacy Source Citation:

Original Repository. Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers. 11646. URL. http://archives.wellcome.ac.uk/

Legacy ID:

SCBBFZ

NLM ID:

101584582X70

Profiles Collection:

The Francis Crick Papers

Shareable Link:

https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X70

Story Section:

Deciphering the Genetic Code, 1958-1966