James Watson

He was a bird-watcher first, out on the South Side of Chicago with a father who had lost his belief in God, and he expected to become an ornithologist. He answered questions on the Quiz Kids radio program. Robert Hutchins's admissions policy let him into the University of Chicago at 15 on a tuition scholarship. Reading Erwin Schrodinger's What Is Life? in 1946 moved him from birds to genes, and he took a zoology degree the following year, then a doctorate at Indiana in 1950 under Salvador Luria, on bacteriophage inactivated by X-rays. Postdoctoral work in Copenhagen came next, and in 1951 the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where he met Francis Crick.

In March 1953 he and Crick worked out that DNA is a double helix of two chains running in opposite directions, and Nature published the paper on April 25. The 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins. He taught at Harvard from 1956 to 1976 and wrote The Molecular Biology of the Gene, the textbook that trained a generation, then coordinated the team behind Molecular Biology of the Cell. In 1968 he took over Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and ran it for roughly 35 years as director and then president, building it into one of the world's great research institutions. He headed the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health from 1990 until April 10, 1992, when he quit over whether gene sequences should be patentable.

Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction results were unpublished when Watson and Crick used them, and they used them without her knowledge or consent — through Maurice Wilkins, who worked in her laboratory, and through an internal Medical Research Council progress report. It was Franklin who told them the sugar-phosphate backbones had to be on the outside, correcting a model that they and Linus Pauling had inside out. In 1954 they conceded in print that without her data their structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible. Then in 1968 The Double Helix put her on the page as Rosy and cast her as an obstacle. Harvard University Press dropped the book after Crick and Wilkins objected, and Crick called it a contemptible pack of damned nonsense. A commercial house took it, and it sold.

In October 2007 he told an interviewer that Africans are less intelligent than Westerners. British venues cancelled his appearances, the Cold Spring Harbor board suspended him, and he apologized and retired at 79. In 2014 he auctioned his Nobel medal at Christie's for 4.1 million dollars, saying he had been made an unperson. Alisher Usmanov bought it and handed it back. In January 2019, after a documentary in which he repeated the claims, the laboratory revoked every honorary title it had given him. He died in East Northport, New York, on November 6, 2025, at 97. The obituaries ranked him with the century's great biologists and said the rest in the same paragraph.

James Watson's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids article
  The Nature paper of April 25, 1953, about a page long 1953
• The Molecular Biology of the Gene book
  His first textbook, revised through many editions —
• The Double Helix book
  Originally to be titled Honest Jim, and dropped by Harvard University Press 1968
• DNA: The Secret of Life book
  Written with Andrew Berry for a general readership 2003
• Avoid Boring People book
  A book of lessons in which he called colleagues fossils and deadbeats 2007
• Human Genome Project at the NIH mission
  He led it until April 10, 1992, and resigned over gene patenting 1990

• 1943 aged ~15 Enters the University of Chicago at 15 on a tuition scholarship
• 1946 aged ~18 Reads What Is Life? and switches from ornithology to genetics
• 1950 aged ~22 Takes a doctorate at Indiana under Salvador Luria His subject was bacteriophage inactivated by X-rays.
• April 25, 1953 aged 25 Nature publishes the double helix paper He and Crick had worked the structure out the previous month.
• 1962 aged ~34 Shares the Nobel Prize with Crick and Wilkins Rosalind Franklin had died in 1958 and was ineligible.
• 1968 aged ~40 Publishes The Double Helix and takes over Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
• April 10, 1992 aged 64 Resigns from the Human Genome Project over gene patents
• October 2007 aged 79 Says Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, and retires at 79 His laboratory suspended him and venues cancelled his tour.
• December 2014 aged 86 Sells his Nobel medal at Christie's for 4.1 million dollars Alisher Usmanov bought it and returned it to him.

• Linus Pauling 1901–1994
  Chemist and peace activist who won two unshared Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace. raced against
• Barbara McClintock 1902–1992
  Cytogeneticist who discovered transposable elements and won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Cold Spring Harbor colleague
• E. O. Wilson 1929–2021
  Biologist whose studies of ants, biodiversity, and sociobiology reshaped ecology, evolution, and conservation debate. Harvard antagonist
• Jennifer Doudna b. 1964
  Biochemist who co-developed CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, revolutionizing genetics and medicine. inherited the molecule