Letter from Francis Crick to Sewell Champe
- Title:
- Letter from Francis Crick to Sewell Champe
- Creator:
- Crick, Francis, 1916-2004
- Recipient:
- Champe, Sewell
- Date:
- 24 October 1966
- Description:
- Crick here commented on Champe's attempt to find the protein for which the rII mutant of the bacterial virus T2 coded. Crick himself discussed results of research with acridine mutants of bacteriophage T4, a different family of mutants in whose study Crick's laboratory specialized and which he used to provide evidence for the three-letter composition of the genetic code.. Crick named the various strains of acridine mutants, which he had initially produced in 1961, by assigning to each one a number, preceded by his initials, such as FC58. He explained that he had done so not for self-aggrandizement but to aid him in organizing and remembering the many different strains.. A cistron denotes the smallest unit of genetic material that must be intact to serve as a transmitter of genetic information, i.e. which determines the sequence of amino acids in one polypeptide chain. Gene and cistron are sometimes used interchangeably.
- Original Repository:
- The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
- Location:
- Box: 8. Folder: PP/CRI/D/1/1/3
- Rights:
- Reproduced with permission of the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. and http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/
- Genre:
- Letters (correspondence)
- Subject:
- Genetic Code
- Format:
- Text
- Extent:
- 2 pages
- Relation:
- Letter from Sewell Champe to Francis Crick, 1966
- 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:
- SCBBPD
- NLM ID:
- 101584582X209
- Profiles Collection:
- The Francis Crick Papers
- Shareable Link:
- https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X209
- Story Section:
- Embryology and the Organization of DNA in Higher Organisms, 1966-1976