New Delhi, Nov 8 “We have discovered the secret of life,” said American scientist James Watson in 1962, along with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick, as the trio shared the Physiology and Medicine Nobel Prize for the DNA’s double helix structure discovery.
Famous geneticist Watson, who died at 97 as confirmed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the US — where he worked and researched for decades — was associated with one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 20th century.
Although DNA was discovered in 1869, it took scientists until 1943 to discover that it made up the genetic material in cells.
To date, the structure of DNA remains a mystery.
Watson died on Thursday (US time) after a brief illness, according to a statement from his former employer.
“I think early on, I wanted to do something important with my life. I still want to think about science and really nothing else,” Watson was quoted as saying in CNN in 2013.
Being driven by the desire to find the truth, that’s really my legacy. The truth, sometimes you don’t find it and it’s complicated, but what you always have is that if you can start with the truth, it’s helpful, he added.
Born in the US state of Chicago in April 1928, he won a scholarship to study at the University of Chicago at age 15. To pursue his research into DNA structures, he went to Cambridge University in England, where he met Crick.
Together, they began constructing large-scale models of possible structures.
As per reports, Watson took over the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York State in 1968. He is credited with turning it into one of the world’s foremost scientific research institutions.
However, his extra-ordinary work was marred owing to his “racist and homophobic remarks” against various groups of people, claiming they had genetic differences.
The remarks led to him losing some of his honorary titles. Watson also made headlines when he sold his Nobel Prize in 2014 for $4.76 million at auction.
Watson told CNN in 2013: “DNA was my only gold rush. I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush.”
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