THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY
WATSON, JAMES D. & CRICK, FRANCIS.. Molecular structure of nucleic acids. A structure of deoxyribose nucleic acid.
Nature, 1953
In: Nature 171, no. 4356 (April 25, 1953), 737-38. Original wrappers. Some foxing. Very good.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA, the cornerstone event in modern genetics and biology and one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time.
Signed by Francis Crick.
This is the original announcement of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. It is accompanied by two important related papers on DNA, one by Wilkins, Stokes and Wilson, the other by Franklin and Gosling. In 1962 Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for medicine. It is very unusual to see this great paper in original state, as most of those that survive are now in bound volumes.
Watson and Crick conclude the first paper with a classic understatement: “The structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest. . . . It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” In 1962 Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for medicine.
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