Francis Crick: Biophysicist and Co-discover of James Watson
The D.N.A. strand’s dual-helix arrangement is credited to Francis Crick with the co-discovery of James Watson.
The biophysicist Francis Crick was supporting the production of radar and magnetic mines during the Second World War.
After the war, he continued to study D.N.A. systems for the Medical Research Council of the University of Cambridge in his James D. Watson Cavendish Laboratory. In 1962, for his thesis, he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine and researched until he died in 2004.
Quick Facts of Francis Crick
Full Name
Francis Harry Compton Crick
Nick Name
Francis
Birthdate
June 8, 1916
Age of Death
88 years old (1916–2004)
Birthplace
Weston Favell, Northampton, United Kingdom
Horoscope
Gemini
Nationality
British
Education
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
University College London
Mill Hill School
Northampton School for Boys
University of Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College
Occupation
Physicist
Geneticist
Biochemist
Molecular Biologist
Neuroscientist
Discovery
Double Helix
Marital Status
Married
Spouse
Ruth Doreen Dodd (1940–1947)
Odile Crick (1949–2004)
Children
Michael Francis Compton
Jacqueline Marie
Gabrielle Anne
Net Worth
Under Review
Social Media Presence
Website
Early Life
François Harry Compton Crick was born in Northampton, the U.K., on June 8, 1916, and taught at Mill Hill College, London, and the Northampton Grammar School. He studied physics and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1937 at University College London.
Shortly afterward, he started to do studies for a doctorate, but in 1939, the Second World War’s start disrupted his trajectory. During the war, he focused on strategic research and the production of magnetic and acoustic mines.
After the battle, Dr. R.V. Jones, the chief of British intelligence, needed Crick to resume his study, but Crick preferred to continue his biology studies. He didn’t know anything of them at this time.
Francis Crick was primarily funded by a Medical Research Council scholarship and went to the Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge, where he moved to the Cavendish Laboratory in 1949.
In 1951, a young American biologist named James Watson started his study at the laboratory, and James and Crick developed a working collaboration that unveiled the secrets of the D.N.A. structure. In 1954, Crick got a Ph.D. at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge.
Career life of Francis Crick
Crick drew success for Erwin Schrödinger, “How can the activities of space and time which is taking place within the living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?.”
Watson persuaded Crick that opening up the secrets of D.N.A.’s structure will provide the answer to the question from Schrödinger and demonstrate the inherited function of D.N.A. In 1953, Watson and Crick developed a molecular model of the known physical and chemical properties of D.N.A. using ray-X diffraction studies.
It was made up of two spiral strands, similar to a twisted ladder (referred to as the “double helix”). They assumed that should both sides divide, each side would be the basis for forming new strands identical to their previous partners.
They also hypothesized that This hypothesis and further studies clarified a gene’s mechanism and the chromosome replication.
Crick was involved in two simple, unanswered biological problems: how molecules transition from the non-living into the living and how the brain makes a mind alive. In his opinion, Gregor Mendel’s genetics and molecular understanding of genesis revealed the secret of creation when paired with the natural selection theory of growth in Charles Darwin.
Francis Crick Test Tube Research
Crick’s opinion was strongly positive that a test tube would produce life very quickly. The covalent bonds in biological molecules that could provide the structural stability required to preserve genetic knowledge in the cells were obvious in principle.
In April 1953, in the book scientific journal Nature, Watson and Crick issued a paper outlining their double-helical D.N.A. structure.
They used English chemist Rosalind Franklin, a Maurice Wilkins colleague, to come to their pioneering discovery at King’s College. Still, their contribution to their observations remained largely unnoticed until she died.
Crick taught himself the X-ray crystallography theory. He observed the mistakes made by his co-workers in their unsuccessful efforts to make the alpha helix a correct molecular model. Crick learned major lessons that could be extended to D.N.A.’s helical structure in the future.
At the time, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins used X-ray diffraction to study D.N.A., both working at King’s College, London. In their study, Crick and Watson used their results.
They released the news in April 1953 that they had discovered a molecular structure of D.N.A. based on all its recognized characteristics, the double helix. Its model was used to demonstrate how D.N.A. replicates and how it codes hereditary knowledge.
Franklin’s unpublished working papers on the structural features of D.N.A. have been collected and with her student. Raymond Gosling had taken a picture of D.N.A. X-ray diffraction, called Photo 51, which would be critical for determining the D.N.A. structure.
Although the Watson and Crick paper contained a footnote admitting that they ‘stimulate a general awareness’ of Franklin’s unfinished contributions, in 1962, four years after Franklin died of ovarian cancer, Watson, Wilkins, and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize for their works.
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