The Structure of DNA: The Double Helix (1986) by James D. Watson summarizes his personal views and experiences from the time in 1952/53 when he and Francis Crick raced against Linus Pauling to indentify the three dimensional structure of DNA. This book, though very subjectively written, and perhaps not entirely correct, is a gripping story of what led to the discovery of the 'Secret of Life'. Some people (e.g. Rosalind Franklin, a crystallographer who produced critical X-ray photographs of DNA) are presented unfavorably in the book, and there has been a large controversy as to whether Watsons 'personal account' is accurate. Also, Watson describes his own role in the work as having been there in the right place at the right time. Overall, the book is a thrilling story of how important discoveries in science are sometimes made.

Other facts and impressions from The Double Helix: Watson was working on viruses (phages), but DNA was always a side track that he was very passionate about; Crick was more the mathematician and model builder, Watson the visionary and driver of the enterprise; up to 1952 it was debated whether protein or DNA is the substance of genetic heredity; Pauling had published that proteins can fold into an alpha-helix structure; he has also published a triple-helix structure for DNA that proved to be incorrect.

The story, from the view of Linus Pauling, is also told on the web site Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA. It contains a narrative, a day-by-day personal account, hundreds of letters, manuscripts, photographs, published papers, and other media. Great resource!

The recent celebration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA structure yielded a large number of exhibitions and journal articles that recollect the events of early molecular biology. An exhibition at New York's Science, Industry and Business Library (New York Public Library), Feb. 24 - Aug. 24, 2003, displays crucial findings that led to the discovery, with special emphasis on the events in the New York area (Columbia, Rockefeller and Cold Spring Harbor Universities).

Notes from the exhibition:

• Friedrich Miescher (1844-1895) isolated DNA; elemantary analysis.


• Phoebus A.T. Levine: Book: Nucleic Acids (1931); was the first to isolate the carbohydrate portion of nucleic acids; distinguished DNA and RNA.


• Erwin Chagraff, Columbia Univ.: A and T, as well as C and G, occur in equal quantities (1:1) in all species.


• Oswald T. Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarthy (Rockefeller, 1944): work with pneumococcus bacteria: DNA, not protein is the principle of life, i.e. carries the hereditary information; called the 'transforming principle'


• Max Dellbrueck (1906-1981), Salvador Luria (1912-1991): Phage Group at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (started 1945, peak late 1940s/early 1950s).


• Alfred Hershey (1908-1997) and Martha Chase (Cold Spring Harbor): using phages, they proved once more that DNA, not protein is the material of heredity. Experiment: Hershey and Chase labeled the protein component of phage with 35S-containing amino acids and the nucleic acid component with 32P; after infection of bacteria and centrifugation, 32P was found in cells, and 35S in the supernatant.


• John Kendrew (1917-1997), Max Perutz (1914-2002): formed the Medical Research Conuncil Unit for Molecular Biology at Cambridge University, UK. Here, Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA; Cavendish Laboratories.


• Linus Pauling, Californina Institute of Technology: had already worked on protein structures in 1948; proposed a triple helix structure for DNA before W. & C. suggested the double helix.


• Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958): took X-ray diffraction images of unprecedented high quality; worked at King's College, London, under Maurice Wilkins (1916-).


• Books: James Waton: The Double Helix (1968); Francis Crick: What Mad Pursuit (1988).