Discovery Gallery

Watson and Crick with their DNA model

COMMERCIAL USE REQUIRES CLEARANCE. The discoverers of the structure of DNA. James Watson (b.1928) at left and Francis Crick (1916-2004), with their model of part of a DNA molecule in 1953. Crick & Watson met at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, in 1951. Their work on the structure of DNA was performed with a knowledge of Chargaff's ratios of the bases in DNA and some access to the X-ray crystallography of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College London. Combining all of this work led to the deduction that DNA exists as a double helix. Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, Franklin having died of cancer in 1958. Photographed in the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, in May 1953

© A. BARRINGTON BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Rutherford and Geiger in laboratory

Ernest Rutherford (left) & Hans Geiger in their laboratory at Manchester University in about 1908. They are seen with the instrumentation they used to detect & count alpha particles from a radio- active source. The experiment led to Rutherford identifying alpha particles as helium ions (they were later shown to be helium nuclei). Rutherford (1871-1937) elucidated the nature of radioactivity & the structure of the atom. Born in New Zealand, he worked in England & Canada & was the greatest experimental physicist of his day. Geiger (1882- 1945) was a German who is best known for his invention of the Geiger counter

© PROF. PETER FOWLER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Watson and Crick, DNA discovers

Watson and Crick. Caricature of the molecular biologists and discoverers of the structure of DNA James Watson (born 1928, left) and Francis Crick (1916-2004), with their model of a DNA molecule. Watson, an American, and Crick, British, met at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, in 1951. Their work on DNA was performed with a knowledge of Chargaff's ratios of the bases in DNA and access to the X-ray crystallography of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College London. Combining this knowledge led to the deduction that DNA exists as a double helix. Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, Franklin having died in 1958

© GARY BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY