Letter from James D. Watson to Francis Crick
- Title:
- Letter from James D. Watson to Francis Crick
- Creator:
- Watson, James D., 1928-
- Recipient:
- Crick, Francis, 1916-2004
- Date:
- 23 September 1956
- Description:
- Until Watson's and Crick's theory of the double helix was fully verified experimentally in the late 1970s, some researchers proposed alternative structures of DNA, mainly that the two strands of DNA were linear, not helical. One was Jerry Donohue, the physical chemist who had first informed Watson of the correct chemical form of the bases of DNA, thereby enabling the latter to uncover the pairing rules. In his letter Watson dismissed an alternative proposed by Donohue and Gunther Stent, a molecular geneticist at the University of California at Berkeley.. In addition, Watson reviewed chromosome experiments conducted by other researchers, and described his adjustment to his new professorship at Harvard, including setting up a laboratory for studying bacterial viruses (phages).
- Original Repository:
- The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
- Location:
- Box: 26. Folder: PP/CRI/D/2/45
- Rights:
- Reproduced with permission of James D. Watson.
- Genre:
- Letters (correspondence)
- Subject:
- DNA
- Format:
- Text
- Extent:
- 2 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:
- SCBBJH
- NLM ID:
- 101584582X115
- Profiles Collection:
- The Francis Crick Papers
- Shareable Link:
- https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X115
- Story Section:
- Defining the Genetic Coding Problem, 1954-1957