DNA, Fifty Years To the Day

An anonymous reader writes "Today being the fiftieth anniversary (April 2, 1953) of the Watson-Crick double-helical, DNA discovery [to quote, 'We wish to put forward a radically different structure...'], there is an interesting tally of completed gene sequences here, and ones still being worked, including the Ames strain of the anthrax bacteria. It also appears that the only lifeforms not using DNA for code storage are a few viruses like the common cold."

acknowledgements....

[urbazewski]

From the acknowledgements section of their letter to Nature:

We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and their co-workers at King's College, London.

Not included in their acknowledgements section: the fact the "general information" about Dr. R. E. Franklin's work was in fact a very specific look at her crystallography data which was removed from her lab without her knowledge or consent by Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins.

Here's a brief NPR review [npr.org] of a recent biography of Rosalind Franklin and a more extensive review [sciam.com] in Scientific American which details the theft of data by Watson/Crick/Wilkins.

Re:As always,

[radiashun]

Watson and Crick wouldn't have accomplished much without Chargoff's data either. Chargoff recognized that A and T and G and C were in rougly a 1:1 ratio (# purines = # pyrimidines). Watson and Crick would've been screwed without alot of outside help. For example, they couldn't figure out why their model wasn't coming together. A chemist happened to be walking by one day and pointed out that oxygen is found in the keto, rather than enol form and nitrogen was found in the amino rather than the imino form (in living systems). Crick was a physicist and Watson was more of a general biologist.

Re:As always,

[urbazewski]

I really enjoyed The Double Helix the first I read it, shortly after high school. The second time I read it, just after grad school, I was appalled. Watson & Crick's (& conspirator Wilkins') deliberate theft of Rosalind Franklin's work violated any reasonable standard of academic or professional conduct, as well as being highly unethical. The fact that Watson went on to trash her in his book only adds insult to tremendous injury.

If you are interested in learning about the abusive mistreatment of women researchers look no further than The Double Helix.

DNA and turing machines

[v_1_r_u_5]

One could construct a two-tape turing machine that simulates the four combinations; if you're interested in mixing computer science with DNA, check out this paper [uni-magdeburg.de].

Re:Some interesting info...

[smoondog]

It's interesting to note that since their discovery of DNA's double-helical structure, neither Watson nor Crick have discovered or published anything significant since then.

Uhh, that is not really the case. Crick had contributions to the prediction of the polyproline II and collagen structures (collagen is the most abundant protein in mammals, and the subject of my graduate research). And, IIRC, that is not Crick's only contribution. There is a hell of alot more science being done that isn't ending up on the cover of Time....

-Sean

I Was Thinking...

[occamboy]

I was thinking about this very subject the other day.

It seems strange to me that while, in principle, the discovery of the structure of DNA was a wonderful thing, it doesn't seem to have affected the average person's life very much. Far less, it seems, then Dr. Fleming's noticing that bread mold contamination was killing his bacterial cultures.

Perhaps I'm missing something, and understanding the structure of DNA is contributing more than I think. But, it occurs to me that if we could put a man on the moon in about 10 years, we ought to be able to do something more with DNA in 50 years.

I suspect that science has become too bureaucratized and institutionalized to know which end is up anymore.

Sigh.

"In other news..."

[Overly Critical Guy]

1. Find obvious article to whore in.
2. Skim the summary.
3. Reply and title your post "In other news..."
4. Take premise of article and twist it into something obviously absurd. Make sure it is not clever, original, or funny in any way.
5. Wait for dull, crackhead moderators with itchy mouse fingers to click it up into the various realms of Funny That Is Not.

I will either be modded down, someone will post another "step" to my list that references responses like mine, or some Anonymous Coward will copy my style as they usually do.

Re:As always,

[shellbeach]

Watson rips on Franlin pretty hard in the book, but mainly because of personality conflicts.

Hmmm ... you might be interested in reading what Brenda Maddox has to say about that in her biography of Rosalind Franklin, "Rosalind Franklin: the Dark Lady of DNA". I'm sorry, but Watson's portrayal of her was at best stupid and insensitive and at worst a cruel deliberate character assasination of someone who was not only dead and could not reply, but had also been a good friend of his in the years following the discovery of DNA's structure.

Maddox's only explanation is that Watson's remarks about Franklin were - whether conciously or unconciously - an attempt to justify the stealing of her results: by portraying her as someone who jealously guarded her data and yet could not interpret it (and nothing could be further from the truth), he thus implied that he was doing science a credit by obtaining her data and making use of it - even if he had to resort to doing it behind her back.

And if you still want to defend The Double Helix, I could also add that the book was refused publication by Watson's University (which was the first publisher he took it to) after a large number of complaints from the other scientists mentioned in it that it was grossly defamatory - not only of Rosalind Franklin but also of almost every other person who featured in the book short of Watson himself!

Re:not lifeforms

[I_Eat_Souls]

That is true, the scientific field does not know at the moment where to classify viruses, as living or non-living, it is actually a very heated debate. The problem is, yes, they can reproduce, but they do so in a way that is very unique, and not truly reproduction. Instead of going through mitosis or sexual reproduction, they viruses DNA reproduces within the host cell, using the pieces of the host cell to create the rest of its body and such. Very interesting stuff, and a fun debate with your science teacher! Bring it up in class next time.

Are viruses lifeforms?

[Colonel Panic]

I thought viruses used to be considered non-living since they could not reproduce on their own... They hae to use their host's cellular machinary to reproduce.

But perhaps the thinking on this has changed...

What about the Ribozymes and Rosalyn?

[Dukeofshadows]

RNA has been demonstrated to have enzyme-like properties in many cases, in some cases even being able to cleave itself if spliced properly. There are more than a few organisms storing information on means other than DNA though few do so exclusively. And for those who doubt, Ms. Franklin's work was most certainly pirated by Crick, Watson, and wilkins. Had this same situation occured today, Ms. Franklin could easily have defeated them in court for theft of intellectual property. Crick was a 10th year PhD student whose previous explorations into whale hemoglobin hadn't led to as much as hoped while Watson was a Harvard postdoc looking for his first breakthrough. At least Wilkins already had a working laboratory, but this does not excuse their actions. Without Franklin's picture, it would have been months or years before the structure would be correctly elucidated (remember, people like Linus Pauling were trying models at that time which included 3-part helices with nucleotides sticking away from the phosphate bonds, etc.)