Biography James Watson

James Watson - DNA Inventor (Dioxyribo Nucleic Acid)
DNA (Dioxyribo Nucleic Acid) is an essential part of all living organisms because DNA is a repository of genetic information, it can be said that DNA is the recipe, scheme, systematics, manuals, maps, blueprints, designs, and unique biological information from living things . Just like every existing building blueprints respectively. AdalahJames DNA discoverer Francis Crick and Watson. James Dewey Watson co-discoverer of DNAdilahirkan in the Chicago area, Illinois on April 6, 1928. He is the only child of James D. Watson, a businessman, and Jean Mitchell. Entire childhood was spent in Chicago young Watson where he was for eight years at Horace Mann Grammar school and for two years at South Shore High School.

He then received a scholarship to go to college to the University of Chicago, and in the summer of 1943 they conducted experiments during four years of college. In 1947, he received his B.Sc. in the field of Zoology. Attention as a child in the push for serious birdwatching learn about genetics. In 1950 he was awarded a Fellowship for graduate study Zoology at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he earned his Ph.D. in the field of Zoology. While in Indiana, he was greatly influenced by genetics concepts HJ Muller and TM Sonneborn, also SE Luria, an Italian-born microbiologist who worked as staff at the Indiana Department of Bacteriology. Watson's thesis was prepared under the guidance of Luria, research on the effects of X-rays on bacteriophage cleavage.
From September 1950 until September 1951 he spent the first year as a postdoctoral Fellow at Copenhagen Merck National Research Council. That year he spent with the biochemist Herman Kalckar, also with a microbiologist Ole Maaløe. Once again he worked with bacterial viruses, attempting to study the DNA of the virus particles. During the spring of 1951, he went with Kalckar to the Zoological Station in Naples. Symposium at the end of May. He met Maurice Wilkins and saw for the first time X-ray diffraction pattern of crystalline DNA. It is very encouraging him to change the course of his research on the chemical structure of nucleic acids and proteins. Step in become possible when Luria, in early August 1951, in collaboration with John Kendrew help Watson conducted research at the Cavendish Laboratory, where he began work in early October 1951.

When I met Crick, they found common desire to solve the DNA structure. Their first serious attempt made in the late fall of 1951, with unsatisfactory results. Their second attempt at the beginning of March 1953 are based on experimental evidence and better appreciation of literature nucleic acids, and written in the proposal of complementary double-helical configuration.

At the same time, he conducted experiments to investigate the structure of TMV (tobbacco Mozaic Virus), using the technique of X-rays diffracted. The goal is to see whether the chemical sub-units that previously had expressed elegantly by experiments Schramm, is a regular spiral. This goal is achieved by the end of June 1952, when using the tube rotating anode X-ray that allows the demonstration yangmeyakinkan the virus helix formation.

From 1953 to 1955, Watson was at the California Institute of Technology as a Senior Research Fellow in the field of Biology. There he worked with Alexander Rich in X-ray diffraction study of the RNA. In the 1955-1956 he returned to the Cavendish, worked with Crick. During working together they published several papers on the general principles of virus construction.

Since the autumn of 1956, he has been a member of the Biology Department at Harvard. First as Assistant Professor, in 1958 as an Associate Professor, and a Professor since 1961. During this time, he conducted primary research on the role of RNA in protein synthesis. Among his collaborators during this period was Swiss biochemist, biochemist Alfred Tissieres and France, François Gros. A lot of experimental evidence that supports the concept of messenger RNA (Arnd / ARNm) he had collected. The main collaborators is a theoretical physicist Walter Gilbert, which makes Watson excited to learn about the experiment in the field of molecular biology. Watson did not get married during life.

James Watson and Francis Crick. James studied the DNA structure of their findings On October 25, 2007 James Watson resigned from his position as head of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This was triggered by remarks deemed racist or eugenic, associated with the inability of African nations to improve their lives and those blacks who considered incompetent. As a result of his statement, a number of academic institutions in the UK to cancel the invitation to him to speak in public and wearing his agency suspended him. Previous years, it has also been stated that a mother should be allowed an abortion if the unborn child is known to bring homosexual gene. He had also said there was the possibility of a link between skin color and "sexual lust" (Sexual Prowess), and between height and ambition. Other controversial statement is that ignorance (stupidity) is a genetic disease that should be treated medically.

Watson earned honors include:
 John Collins Warren Prize of the Massachusetts General Hospital, which is obtained with Crick in 1959
 Eli Lilly Award in Biochemistry in the same year
 Lasker Award, obtained with Crick and Wilkins in 1960
 Research Corporation Prize, obtained with Crick in 1962
 American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences
 Foreign membership of the Danish Academy of Arts and Sciences
 Watson is also a consultant to the President's Scientific Advisory Committee

References:
- Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson
- Http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/watson-bio.html (Translation)