Francis Crick

From Physics to Biology

Francis Harry Compton Crick was born on 8 June 1916 in Northampton, England. He was educated at Northampton Grammar School and Mill Hill School, then studied physics at University College London, receiving his BSc in 1937.

Crick began PhD research in physics, but his work was interrupted by the Second World War. During the war he worked for the British Admiralty on magnetic and acoustic mines. He left the Admiralty in 1947 and moved into biological research, working at the Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge.

The DNA Double Helix

In 1949, Crick joined the Medical Research Council unit at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, led by Max Perutz. He met James Watson in Cambridge in 1951, and they began working together on the structure of DNA.

In 1953, Watson and Crick proposed the double-helix model of DNA. Their achievement was developing the double-helical molecular model — not discovering DNA itself. Important contributors to this work included Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray diffraction work at King's College London was central to understanding the structure. Raymond Gosling produced Photograph 51 under Franklin's supervision, and Maurice Wilkins conducted X-ray studies of DNA at King's College London. Erwin Chargaff established important relationships among DNA base quantities.

Photograph 51 was not Watson's or Crick's photograph. The contributions of Franklin, Wilkins and others were essential to the model Watson and Crick proposed.

The Genetic Code

Crick completed a PhD in 1954 relating to X-ray diffraction of polypeptides and proteins — completing his doctorate after the DNA double-helix paper appeared.

Crick continued making major contributions after 1953. His later work included ideas about how genetic information is transferred, the adaptor hypothesis, and work with Sydney Brenner and others on the genetic code. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1959.

The 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared by Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins. Rosalind Franklin died in 1958 and could not receive the prize.

Later Career and Legacy

In 1976, Crick moved to the Salk Institute in California. His later research included neurobiology and the study of consciousness.

Crick died on 28 July 2004 in San Diego, California. His scientific importance extends well beyond the double helix — his work on the genetic code helped explain how biological information is stored and read in living organisms.