James D. Watson

At the age of twenty-two, molecular biologist and geneticist James D. Watson received his PhD from Indiana University. He believed that the gene could be understood only by observing nucleic-acid molecules. Studying X-ray diffraction techniques with biophysicist Francis Crick, physicist Maurice Wilkins, and chemist Rosalind Franklin, he saw that the essential components of DNA were paired. This discovery led the four of them to formulate the molecular model for DNA: a double helix. In 1962 Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology Medicine. As the Nobel Prize may not be shared between four or more people, Franklin was not honored.