...skeptical of Avery’s research was James Watson, a young American student and former child prodigy. Watson was born in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, and he attended the University of Chicago for college, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1947. In 1950, he received a PhD in ornithology from the University of Indiana, and, after reading What is Life? By Erwin Schrodinger, decided to pursue genetic research. The problem was, Watson had almost no experience whatsoever in chemistry. In 1950, Watson began his studies with a microbiologist, where he was assigned to write a thesis paper on phages, a simple type of virus. These studies proved difficult due to Watson’s lack of chemical knowledge, and his supervisor realized that more information about phages, proteins, and genes would become apparent if they understood the structure. In attempt to acquire some basic chemical experience, Watson began a short internship at a lab where he nearly caused a catastrophic explosion. Following this unfortunate incident, Watson’s knowledge of chemistry remained unimpressive, as shortly thereafter, the...
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...structure of DNA James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin What did they discover about DNA? James Watson, along with Francis Crick, studied the molecular structure of DNA that had been extracted from cells and showed how it could serve as the chemical basis of inheritance. Although it is commonly known that everything they "discovered" they stole from Rosalind Franklin, who proceeded to obligingly die. That said they're incorrectly famous for discovering that DNA is composed of sequences of purines and pyramidines hydrogen-bonded together and held in place by two sugar-phosphate strands that form a double helix due to more hydrogen bonding. Maurice Wilkins is not credited for the actual discovery of the structure of DNA rather that distinction goes to James Watson and Francis Crick and is known as the Watson-Crick model. Wilkins did share in the Nobel prize because his work in spectroscopic studies on nucleic acids led to the use of X-ray crystallography to define the Watson-Crick model of DNA. Rosalind Franklin discovered the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal and graphite. She was a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who was best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA which led to discovery of DNA double helix. Rosalind Franklin's critical contributions to the Crick and Watson model include an X-ray photograph of B-DNA (called photograph 51), that was briefly shown to James Watson by Maurice Wilkins in...
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...Maurice Wilkins was a very important scientist. He earned many different awards from his findings. He is well-known for beginning the X-ray diffraction images of DNA that contributed to Watson and Crick's discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. Maurice Wilkins was born on December 15, 1916. He was born in Pongaroa, New Zealand. His father is Edgar. He was a physician who had a strong interest in public health. The family moved to London in 1922 so his father could pursuit a diploma in public health. When he finished his studies the family moved to Birmingham. His father then became a school doctor. In an autobiography Wilkins said he developed a love for science. He had a childhood hobby of building models of flying machines. He later studied astronomy and physics at Cambridge University because of this. Maurice Wilkins was popular at Cambridge. He was very social and smart. He was active in many different kinds of student organizations. Some of the organizations he was in are the Cambridge Scientists’ Anti-War Group and the National Sciences Club. Wilkins had a mentor in...
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...Alexandra Gehrs James Watson James Watson was born on April 6th, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. He was the only son of Jean and James D. Watson, who was a businessman from English descent. He had one sister named Elizabeth Jean Watson, whom he loved very much. Watson grew up on the southside of Chicago and attended the public schools in the area.Watson attended Horace Mann Grammar School for eight years, and South Shore High School for two years. During his childhood, Watson was fascinated with bird watching with his father, pointing out all of the different types of birds and their ways of living. In 1943, he received a scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he enrolled at fifteen years old. Four years later, he graduated with his Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology. He then attended Indiana University to work on his PhD in Zoology. He graduated in 1950 from Indiana and started to transform his childhood love of bird watching into genetics. During his time at Indiana, Watson had begun to work with X-ray imaging. His thesis was a study based on the effect of intense X-rays on bacterial reproduction, which led him to study more in depth with X-ray imaging and observing photographic patterns created by them. In the fall of 1951, Watson met Maurice Wilkins at Cambridge University. He saw for the first time crystalline DNA’s X-ray diffraction...
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...Rosalind Franklin: Life through X-ray Crystallography and DNA Rosalind Franklin, the woman who contributed to scientist of the future understanding DNA structure. Scientist such as James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins benefited greatly from her findings. They received a Nobel Prize based off of her findings. Rosalind was also an X-ray crystallographer. X-ray crystallography is used for looking at atomic and molecular structures of crystal. This work contributed to her discovering the structure of DNA. Franklin was born in London, England, July 25, 1925. She attended an all girls school, which was one of the only schools that offered physics and chemistry. Clearly Franklin excelled at chemistry, as well as all of her other academics. In 1938, franklin attended Newnham College in Cambridge and graduated in 1941. In her graduate year she started a fellowship but in 1942 she started working at the British Coal Utilization Research Association. During this time she studies the porosity of coals, and compared it to the density of Helium. She found that through the pores of coal, substances were expelled in molecular sizes as the temperature increased. These findings helped with coals performance for fuel purposes. Franklin’s work with coals helped with the earning of her doctorate in physical chemistry that she earned in 1945 from Cambridge University. From 1947-1950 Franklin worked in Paris at Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l’Etat. Here Franklin...
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...inherited diseases. Erwin Chargaff discovered what we know ar “Chargaff’s rules.” The first rule was that the number of guanine bases equals the number of cytosine bases, and that the number of adenine bases equals the number of thymine bases. The second rule was that the DNA varied from species to species. Rosalind Franklin helped in understanding the structure of the DNA by discovering the A and B forms of the DNA. She had applied the technique of x-ray diffusion in conducting her research. Franklin had figured out, from her x-ray, that the tops of the DNA made an ‘X’ shape. Since Franklin had a lot of copies of the x-ray her partner Maurice Wilkins took one of her copies, without her knowing, and gave it to James Watson and Francis Crick. Watson and Crick figured out, with the help of Franklin’s x-ray) a double helix is two antiparallel chains of nucleotides held together by base pairs between A and...
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...In 1962 James Watson along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded a Noble Prize for the paper that they published about the discovery of the double-helix model of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. The discovery of the helical structure of DNA is considered as one of the most important achievements in the field of the science history. However, James Watson does not deserve the recognition of discovering the helical model of DNA. Watson should lose his nobel prize, not only did he not give any credit to the person who was really the one responsible in discovering the helical shape of DNA he is also making rude and prejudiced opinions. Few people know Rosalind Franklin, a scientist who devoted herself in the scientific study of the structure...
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...In 1950, the curiosity, innovation, and persistence of James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin all together led to a detailed and completed understanding of the structure of Deoxyribonucleic acid. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic material found in all cells and is the stuff that genes are made out of. Their discoveries would come to answer one of the most impending questions in the science of life. How do living things pass on traits to their children? This is the question that sparked the want and need of exploration and discovery. James Watson and Francis Crick are the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953. Rosalind Franklin was collecting experimental data about DNA with Maurice Wilkins. Watson...
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...In fact, most of her papers were published with him that is why when Rosalind Franklin died Klung took over her job as the head of virus structure research group. She later died from cancer in 1958. In 1962 James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for solving the structure of DNA. She was not given any credit of her discovery until later years. Later in 2004 Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science became the first university named after a female scientist. Rosalind Franklin University is a nonprofit and private graduate school located in North Chicago, Illinois. It has five schools: the Chicago Medical School, the College of Health Professions, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. An article in the university’s website states that “Over 97 percent of the Chicago Medical School Class of 2014 matched into residency programs across the...
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...Molecular Biology of Gene BT251: 1st term Lecture 6 1 Reference books 1. Biochemistry by J.M Berg, J.L. Tymoczko and L. Stryer; 6th edition, W.H. Freeman publisher 2. Molecular biology of the cell by Bruce Alberts and others, 5th edition, Garland Science publisher 3. Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, 5th Edition, W.H. Freeman publisher Composition of a gene What is nucleic acid? • Nucleic acids like DNA (deoxyribo nucleic acid) and RNA (ribo nucleic acid) are long linear polymers that carry information in a form that can be passed from one generation to the next. • DNA and RNA are composed of series of linked nucleotides What is a nucleotide? • It is composed of a sugar, a base and a phosphate Nucleotide = sugar + base + phosphate Nucleoside = sugar + base 3 Composition of a gene What are the bases? (A) (G) (C) (U) (T) 4 Difference between DNA and RNA RNA and DNA Differ in the Sugar Component and One of the Bases 2’ carbon atom of the sugar lacks the oxygen atom in DNA • In RNA : Uracil (U) • In DNA : Thymine (T) In RNA : adenosine, guanosine, cytidine, and uridine In DNA : deoxyadenosine, deoxyguanosine, deoxycytidine, and thymidine 5 Nucleic acid: an information carrier What is the form of information? • Sequence of bases along a nucleic acid chain • DNA, RNA molecules are linear polymers built up from similar units connected end to end • Each unit consists of three components: a sugar, a phosphate...
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...Karam Kathawa Bio 1000 Cathy Kelly 03/28/2017 Bio. Bio James Dewey Watson is a biologist that was born on April 6 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. James Watson had a bad child hood, his father wasn’t a religious man he didn’t believe in God and so does James Watson and he consider himself lucky because of that. When James Watson was 15 he joined a radio show that challenges young people to answer a hard questions and he was good at it. James Watson went to the University of Chicago where they offered him a full scholar ship. James Watson read a book called “What Is Life” that book changed his way of thinking and his destination. In 1950 James Watson got his Ph. D. degree from Indiana University. James Watson met Francis crick whom become his best friend and...
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...Many believe that if one chooses to focus on their education and career they often sacrifice the social aspect of their life. Atwood support this idea when she writes about the nickname students use for the Watson-Crick academy. Jimmy informs the reader that “Watson-Crick was known to students as Asperger’s U. because of the high percentage of brilliant weirdos that strolled and hopped and lurched through its corridors” (Atwood 228). Students calling Watson-Crick Asperger’s U implies that all the students who attend the academy lack the normal social skills that most college students possess. He continues to describe these students as “Demi-autistic, genetically speaking; singletrack tunnel-vision minds, a marked degree of social ineptitude- these were not your sharp dressers…” (Atwood 228). This further insults those who study science because many believe that they are not able to behave appropriately in a social setting. The description of the students at Watson-Crick shows the immense imbalance between the arts and science. The belief that individuals who study science have no social life forces people to think they have to choose between wanting a normal life and a successful career in the science field. This is further illustrated in the novel when Atwood describes Crake’s relationship with...
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...In what way has science and technology advanced medicine since 1750 (12 marks) Science and technology has advanced medicine since 1750 because of the discovery of DNA. James Watson and Crick started working together on studying the structure of DNA whilst at the same time Maurice Wilkins and Rosland Franklin in London were using X-ray diffraction to study DNA. Crick and Watson used their findings on their own research and in April 1953 they published the news of their discovery, a molecular structure of the DNA based on all of its features. Their model served to explain how DNA replicates and how hereditary information is coded on it. This set the stages for rapid advances in molecular biology which continues until this day. In the other partnership with Rosland and Franklin, Franklin produced an X-ray photo that allowed Crick and Watson to work out the 3D structure of DNA. The structure of the DNA was found to be a double helix. Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared a Nobel peace prize in medicine in 1962. Franklin had died in 1958 and despite her hard work the prize could not be received posthumously. Another way in which science and technology advanced medicine since 1750 was the development of penicillin. In 1928, Alexander Fleming whilst studying influenza noticed that mold had developed accidently and completely by chance on a set of culture petri dishes used to grow staphylococci germ. The mold on the petri dishes created a bacteria free circle around itself. He then experimented...
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...HSC Biology – Blueprint of Life 4. The structure of DNA can be changed and such changes may be reflected in the phenotype of the affected organism. The phenotype of an organism is its total appearance determined during development by an interaction between its genetic make-up (genotype) and the environment. A genome is all of the genetic material (DNA) within a cell and is specific to each organism. Genomes influence nearly all the traits or phenotypes. The phenotypic appearance is therefore directly affected by gene expression. The extent of phenotypic differences depends on how different the DNA sequences are in individuals, but may also be influenced by the environment. • Outline evidence that led to Beadle and Tatum’s ‘one gene-one protein’ hypothesis and explain why this was altered to the ‘one gene – one polypeptide’ hypothesis Beadle and Tatum carried out experiments with red bread mould. The normal variety of mould can manufacture certain substances that it needs for living, including vitamin B1, B2, B4 and B12. The normal moult possesses specific enzymes that catalyse the different reactions that produce these vitamins. Beadle and Tatum produced several varieties of the bread mould, each of which had a change in one of its genes. They tested these varieties and found that some had lost their ability to make vitamin B2 while others could no longer make vitamin B4 and so on. The results obtained by Beadle and Tatum showed that a change in various...
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...The full name of these two Scientists is Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl they were from the California Institute of technology, they are well known for performing an experiment in 1958, which proved the hypothesis of Watson and Crick in which DNA replicated itself by opening up the double helix without coming completely apart and that it was Semi conservative (Holmes, 2001). What Semi conservative mean is one strand of DNA is used as the template which is usually 15N indicated by the color red for replicating the other DNA strand 14N which is usually blue, using only half the DNA is what makes it Semi conservative (Macy, 2002). The experiment was Bacterium E.Coli was grown around radioactive 15N until the DNA was all 15N. Because they...
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