November 7, 2025
2 minute read
James Watson, who helped discover the structure of DNA, dies aged 97
James Watson's work in discovering the double-stranded structure of DNA led to a revolution in biology and genetics.
James Watson in his office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on June 10, 2015.
J. Conrad Williams Jr/Newsday RM via Getty Images
James Dewey Watson, a molecular biologist whose work helped decipher the structure of DNA, died on November 6, 2025, at a hospice in East Northport, New York. He was 97 years old.
Watson was best known for his contributions to the 1953 discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, discovered when he and molecular biologist Francis Crick published their research in Nature. This discovery revealed how genetic information is stored and reproduced and ushered in a new era of molecular genetics and biotechnology.
Watson was born in Chicago on April 6, 1928. At age 15, he attended the University of Chicago, received a degree in zoology, and then completed his doctorate. at Indiana University in 1950. In 1951, he joined the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in England, met Crick and began collaborating on research into the nature of DNA.
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Their big breakthrough relied heavily on X-ray diffraction data obtained by chemist Rosalind Franklin and biophysicist Maurice Wilkins of King's College London. Watson shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Wilkins and Crick, and Franklin received due recognition for her contributions only much later.
Watson later joined the biology department at Harvard University, where his research focused on understanding messenger RNA. In 1968, he was appointed director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which he helped develop into a leading center for genetic research.
Watson was the author of several books, including Double helix And Molecular biology of the gene.
His legacy was complicated by repeated racist remarks that linked race and intelligence. These statements led to his resignation from Cold Spring Harbor in 2007.
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