Decoding Watson

DNA is known as “the molecule of life.” But what exactly is DNA, and how does it work? Molecular biologist Andrea Morris and other experts explain the science behind the double helix and how it makes each of us genetically distinct.

James Watson and Francis Crick discovered DNA’s structure in 1953, but other scientists paved the way for them. Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher isolated DNA in 1869, testing cell nuclei in pus. In 1944, Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty’s study of pneumonia bacteria provided definitive evidence that DNA was the molecule of heredity.

X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin’s work contributed to James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of DNA’s structure. Yet, Watson insulted Franklin and depicted her in a negative light in his bestselling book “The Double Helix.”