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James D. Watson . By: Andrey N. Kostadinov. When he lived. James D. Watson was born on April 6, 1928. He is still living today at the age of 85. . Going Places.
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James D. Watson By: Andrey N. Kostadinov
When he lived • James D. Watson was born on April 6, 1928. • He is still living today at the age of 85.
Going Places • James D. Watson was born in Chicago, IL.. He went to Copenhagen, Denmark when he went to the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. After, when he first learned about the bio molecular research he went to Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University in England. He lived in Britain for a while. Afterwards, he went to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and became Professor Of Biology.
Where he lived (continued) • While still working at Harvard, James became the Director of The Cold Spring Laboratory on Long Island. After his long journey, he now lives in London, England.
titles • James D. Watson was known as a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. But he also was an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.
Getting started • In 1947, James obtained B.Sc. degree in zoology. Later he received a Fellowship for graduate study in Zoology at Indiana University in Bloomington and received his Ph.D. in zoology there in 1950. He was strongly influenced by geneticists, H.J. Muller, T.M. Sonnerborn, and S.E. Luria the Italian microbiologist. From 1950 to 1951 he spent his first postdoctoral year in Copenhagen as a Merck Fellow for the National Research Council.
Further career • Part of the year was with Herman Kalckar, and the final part was with Ole Maaløe. In the spring of 1951 he went with Kalckar to the Zoologist Station in Naples. Late in May he met a man, Maurice Wilkins and saw for the first time, the X-ray diffraction pattern of a crystalline DNA. After that experience, he wanted to research structural chemistry of nucleic acids and proteins.
Discovery • 1953 to 1955, Watson was at the California Institute of Technology as Senior Research Fellow in Biology. There he was with Alexander Rich in X-ray diffraction studies of RNA. 1955-1956 he went back in the Cavendish, working with Crick again. During this visit they published several papers on the general principles of virus construction.
Later • After the discovery, he became a member of Harvard Biology Department . He went from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to Professor. He was a Professor since 1961. During this, his interest was in RNA in protein synthesis. After he was invited in 1988 to the National Institute of Health. There, he became an Associate Director of the Human Genome Project.
Following • The following year he became Director. Watson later left in 1992 seeing it had a successful start. He continued at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory throughout this period. In 1994, he became President of that institution, and later served as Chancellor. Universities and governments honored James and gave him many prizes and decorations. Not only that, but Watson wrote several books including the best-selling: Double Helix. His other books were: The DNA Story, Molecular Biology of the Gene, Molecular Biology of the Cell Recombinant DNA: A Short Course, and his 2003 memoir, Genes, Girls and Gamow.
Present Day • James D. Watson retired. He is married and enjoys his extra-curricular activities of bird watching and walking.
Sources: • http://www.nobelprize.org • http://www.achievement.org • http://www.cshl.edu
