Central Labs Speaker Profile: Dr. James D Watson

Central Labs West will be taking place February 3-5, 2010, and before then, we're going to highlight some of the speakers who will be joining us. We invite you to join our Central Labs LinkedIn group to network and communicate with others before and during the event!


James Dewey Watson was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He was a precocious student, and entered the University of Chicago when he was only 15. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology four years later, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in the same subject at Indiana University. He was engaged in research at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark when he first learned of the biomolecular research underway at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University in England. Watson joined Francis Crick in this work at Cambridge in 1951.

Together, Watson and Crick attempted to determine the chemical structure of living matter. When their initial research failed to produce results, the directors of the laboratory ordered them to end their investigation, but they continued their work in secret and, on February 28, 1953, they made a momentous discovery.

The two scientists had determined the structure of the molecule deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), of which all living matter is made. In June they published their findings in the British science journal Nature. The article created a sensation. The DNA molecule, Watson and Crick had found, is shaped like a double helix, or "gently twisted ladder." The two chains of the helix unlink "like a zipper," and reproduce their missing halves. In this way, each molecule of DNA is able to create two identical copies of itself.

The initials DNA and the elegant model of the double helix, became known around the world. So did Watson and Crick. Their discovery revolutionized the study of biology and genetics, making possible the recombinant DNA techniques used by today's biotechnology industry.

James Watson became a Senior Research Fellow in Biology at the California Institute of Technology, before returning to Cambridge in 1955. The following year he moved to Harvard University, where he became Professor of Biology, a post he held until 1976.

Biography Courtesy of the Academy of Achievement