Francis Crick biography

Synopsis

Early Years

Francis Harry Compton Crick was born on June 8, 1916, in Northampton, England, and was educated at Northampton Grammar School and Mill Hill School in London. He attended University College London, where he studied physics, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1937. He soon began conducting research toward a Ph.D., but, in 1939, his path was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. During the war, he worked on the development of magnetic and acoustic mines, leaving eight years later to continue his studies, this time in biology, of which he knew very little at this point.

Supported chiefly by a scholarship from the Medical Research Council, Francis Crick went to Cambridge and worked at the Strangeways Research Laboratory before moving on to Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in 1949. A young American named James Watson appeared at the lab in 1951, and he and Crick formed a collaborative working relationship unraveling the mysteries of the structure of DNA. Crick also was a student once again during this period, and he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge's Gonville and Caius College in 1954.

DNA Research

Crick found inspiration in something he read from Erwin Schrödinger—"How can the events of space and time which take place within the ... living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?"—and Watson convinced Crick that unlocking the secrets of DNA's structure would both provide the answer to Schrödinger's question and reveal DNA's hereditary role. Using X-ray diffraction studies of DNA, in 1953, Watson and Crick constructed a molecular model representing the known physical and chemical properties of DNA. It consisted of two intertwined spiral strands, resembling a twisted ladder (referred to as the "double helix"). They hypothesized that if the two sides split from one another, each side would become the basis for a pattern for the formation of new strands identical to their former partners.

This theory and subsequent research led to an explanation of the process behind the replication of a gene and, eventually, the chromosome.

Watson and Crick published a paper outlining their DNA double-helical structure in the scientific journal Nature in April 1953. Another team at King's College had been working to unlock the structure of DNA as well, and the work earned Crick, Watson and Maurice Wilkins, one of the King's College scientists, the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Later Years

Crick continued to study DNA, and in 1962, he became director of Cambridge University's Molecular Biology Laboratory, as well as a (non-resident) fellow of the Salk Institute in California.