"The structure of DNA and the replication mechanism"

Date:
1961
Reference:
PP/CRI/H/3/5/1
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: "The structure of DNA and the replication mechanism". Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/15
    the yugar, irurberg® (lyf 1 -) also published a speculative paper t suggesting two configurations for the ;olynuceotide chain (reproduced in dordan^), Each of these consisteu of one chain only» Although one of these is rather similar to one chain of the double helix, ana although Wat«on and Crick were avare of this paper, it cannot be «aid to have contributed anything to the actual solution of the aouble-helical structure» The only serious X-ray work on Dì? a up to 1953 was carried out by Wilkins and his collègues and by Franklin and Gosling, both in the same laboratory at King^éollege» London. The work had been initiated by Wilkins. It had been taken over by Franklin when she joined the laboratory. However the collabor- ation did not work very smoothly, and in 1953 Franklin had arranged t to join Bernai*s laboratory at Birkbeck. The subsequent work was carried out almost entirely by Wilkins and co-workers. At the time that Watson and Crick produced their structure both Williams and Franklin were still at Kings. This explains why there were two parallel papers, published simultaneously in î'ature from the same laboratory. This early X-ray work established several important facts, and the structure devised by Watson and Crick was based on these: 1. There were two closely related forms of the structure, called a and B, The B form was paracrystalline and had the strong 3»4 k reflection. The A fona was crystalline, and its cell dimensions had been discovered. 2, uensit considerations made it highly unlikely that these