The structure of DNA
A double helix explains how heredity is stored and copied.
- When
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Watson and Crick publish the double helix in April 1953, noting drily that the pairing they had postulated immediately suggests a copying mechanism. The model depended critically on Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction data, shown to them without her knowledge; she died in 1958 and the Nobel was awarded in 1962 to Watson, Crick and Wilkins. It is the founding result of molecular biology.