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| Nobel Prize winner for DNA discoveries dies |
| New York, 09.11.2025 |
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| Nobel Prize winner James Watson, who co-discovered the double-stranded structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), died on Thursday at the age of 97. TASR reported this according to reports from Reuters, AFP and AP.
Watson died in hospice care on Long Island in the US state of New York. His death was confirmed by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), where he worked for many years.
Watson deciphered the structure of the DNA molecule responsible for the transmission of hereditary information together with Briton Francis Crick, for which they won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962.
James Dewey Watson was born on April 6, 1928 in Chicago, his parents were of British-Irish origin. He spent his childhood and school years in his hometown. At the age of 15, he began studying at the University of Chicago in 1943 and completed his studies in 1947 with a bachelor's degree in zoology.
The study of birds led Watson to an interest in genetics. He received his doctorate in 1950 from Indiana University, where he was influenced by the work of colleagues in the fields of microbiology and genetics. In October 1951, he began working at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where Crick became his colleague.
Their description of the structure of DNA was of revolutionary importance: it explained the transmission of hereditary characteristics during cell division. The sequence of the so-called nucleotides, which are made up of deoxyribose (chemically a sugar), a phosphate group and one of four bases – adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine – is responsible for this. Nucleotides form long spiral chains, while DNA consists of two helices, i.e. has the shape of a double helix.
After the beginning of the new millennium, Watson caused sharp controversy with the opinion that human intelligence is genetically determined, and also that the innate average intelligence of Africans is lower compared to Westerners. These considerations were labeled racist, Watson defended himself by saying that he was not spreading racism, but that he was thinking like a scientist.
He eventually resigned from the CHSL leadership and retired. In 2019, Watson reiterated his views in a television documentary, and the laboratory therefore severed all contact with him.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Watson is the holder of many honors and titles from world universities. In 2002, he was knighted by Sir Christopher Meyer, the then British ambassador to the United States.odkaz na stránku |
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