Francis Crick  - 1954

• William Astbury
• Oswald Avery
• Sir William Lawrence Bragg
• Erwin Chargaff
• Martha Chase
• Robert Corey
• Francis Crick
• Max Delbrück
• Jerry Donohue
• Rosalind Franklin
• Bruce Fraser
• Sven Furberg
• Alfred Hershey
• Linus Pauling
• Peter Pauling
• Max Perutz
• J. T. Randall
• Verner Schomaker
• Alexander R. Todd
• James Watson
• Maurice Wilkins

Francis Crick

• James Watson and Francis Crick to LP March 21, 1953
• LP to Watson and Crick March 27, 1953
• Francis Crick to LP April 14, 1953
• LP to Francis Crick, Francis Crick to LP September 13, 1957
• LP to Watson, Crick, Wilkins October 18, 1962
• Francis Crick to LP October 24, 1962
• LP to James Watson, LP to Francis Crick (copy) February 18, 1963

• A Structure for DNA (Typescript) 1953

• Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids April 25, 1953

• Original DNA model. 1953
• Crick and Watson walking. 1953
• The RNA Tie Club. 1955
• Francis Crick, a member of the RNA Tie Club. 1955
• James Watson and Francis Crick. 1959
• James Watson and Francis Crick at a local pub. 1968

When I went to Oxford in October 1952 to work on bacteriophage with Hinshelwood, it was the intention of seeing whether physical chemistry could provide help in solving biological problems. I should have gone to study molecular biology but the subject did not yet exist. From my past experience in cytology and cytogenetics, I knew that DNA was the material basis of heredity and that RNA was important for protein synthesis. I had read Schrödinger's book (What is Life? Cambridge; 1944) but, more importantly, I had read von Neumann's article (in Cerebral Mechanisms in Behaviour: the Hixon symposium. Edited by Jeffress L A: Hafner Publishing Company, New York; 1951) on the theory of self-reproducing machines. Beyond this, I had many nebulous ideas on how nucleic acids might exert their function and on how we might test them, including one ridiculous proposal that the structure of nucleic acids could be solved by dichroism measurements of DNA complexed with acridine dyes. I met Jack Dunitz and Leslie Orgel in Oxford and we had many interesting discussion on these topics. It was Jack who told me that the structure of DNA had probably been solved by two people in Cambridge, Francis Crick and Jim Watson, and I can remember trying to understand Jack's explanation of Francis' work on helical diffraction.
On a chilly morning in April 1953, with Jack, Leslie and another crystallographer, I went to Cambridge and saw the model and met Francis and Jim. It was the most exciting day of my life. The double helix was a revelatory experience; for me, everything fell into place and my future scientific life was decided there and then.
When the paper appeared a few weeks later, it was not well received by the establishment, composed largely of professional biochemists. They could not see, at the time, how profoundly it would change their subject by offering us a framework for studying the chemistry of biological information.
"A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" by J D Watson and F H C Crick. Nature 1953, 171:737-738. Appears in "Outstanding Papers in Biology," selected and introduced by Sydney Brenner. 1953.


"Gradually DNA became better known. Paul Doty told me that shortly after lapel buttons came in he was in New York and to his astonishment saw one with 'DNA' written on it. Thinking it must refer to something else he asked the vendor what it meant, 'Get with it, bud,' the man replied in a strong New York accent, 'dat's the gene.'"
Francis Crick, "How to Live with a Golden Helix, The Sciences, vol. 19, no. 5. September 1979.

• The DNA Story, Francis Crick 1973
• The DNA Story, Francis Crick talks about Erwin Chargaff 1973
• The DNA Story, Francis Crick 1973
• The DNA Story, Francis Crick and James Watson discuss their discovery 1973
• The Linus Pauling Symposium, The Impact of Linus Pauling on Molecular Biology [1 of 2] February 28, 1995
• The Linus Pauling Symposium, The Impact of Linus Pauling on Molecular Biology [2 of 2] February 28, 1995