Letter from Alexander Rich to Francis Crick
- Title:
- Letter from Alexander Rich to Francis Crick
- Creator:
- Rich, Alexander
- Recipient:
- Crick, Francis, 1916-2004
- Date:
- 2 May 1958
- Description:
- Rich reported on his studies of the structure of RNA. He had found that a strand of poly-A (a synthetic strand of RNA consisting entirely of adenine), when combined with a strand of poly-U (a complementary strand consisting of uracil, which replaces the closely related thymine in RNA), spontaneously paired with poly-U to form a double helix similar to DNA. This double-helical form of RNA produced clear X-ray diffraction patterns that allowed inferences regarding the positions, angles, and bonds within the RNA molecule, which in its usual form is single-stranded and thus does not produce good diffraction images.. At the outset of his letter, Rich described his reaction to the death of Rosalind Franklin.
- Original Repository:
- The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
- Location:
- Box: 10. Folder: PP/CRI/D/1/1/17
- Rights:
- Reproduced with permission of Alexander Rich.
- Genre:
- Letters (correspondence)
- Subject:
- Genetic Code
- Format:
- Text
- Extent:
- 4 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:
- SCBBCD
- NLM ID:
- 101584582X17
- Profiles Collection:
- The Francis Crick Papers
- Shareable Link:
- https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X17
- Story Section:
- Deciphering the Genetic Code, 1958-1966