James Watson

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James Watson, 2012
James D Watson signature.svg

James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928 in Chicago , Illinois ) is an American molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner . Together with Francis Crick he postulated the double helix model of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in 1953 .

Life

James Dewey Watson studied zoology at the University of Chicago . As a gifted man, Watson had already received his doctorate in zoology from Indiana University Bloomington in 1950 with a thesis on bacteriophages . In 1951 he went to England to study the DNA molecule, initially without much success. Together with Francis Crick and taking into account the results of the X-ray structure analysis by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins and the base complementarity by Erwin Chargaff , he then developed a double helix model of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge , which was published in 1953 under the title Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid was presented and published. This memorable publication ended with the sentence It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material. ("It has not escaped our attention that the special pairings, which we take for granted, immediately suggest a possible mechanism of reproduction for the genetic material." For this discovery, Watson received X-ray crystallographer Maurice Wilkins together with Francis Crick and the native New Zealander 1962 the Nobel Prize in Medicine . The X-ray structure data from Rosalind Franklin also played a significant role. The manner in which Watson and Crick, with the help of Wilkins and Max Ferdinand Perutz, obtained the crystallographic data important for their work from Franklin, described by Watson himself in his book The Double Helix , was later criticized as scientific misconduct and is controversial.

James Watson at the National Cancer Institute (around 1990)

In 1957 Watson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1962 to the National Academy of Sciences and 1977 to the American Philosophical Society . In 1971 he received the John J. Carty Award . From 1961 to 1976 he was a professor at Harvard University and from 1976 director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) on Long Island , New York , on whose governing bodies he had been since 1994.

On October 25, 2007, Watson announced his resignation from his last position as Chancellor with immediate effect, after he had previously been suspended by the institute's executive board in the wake of his statements about the allegedly genetically caused lower intelligence of “blacks”. Watson had claimed that social and development aid was doomed to fail because it erroneously assumed that blacks were equally intelligent as whites. After he withdrew his testimony and regretted it in writing, his honorary title was initially awarded again.

The Time Magazine counted Watson's 100 most influential people of the 20th century. His book The Double Helix , in which he describes the discovery of the structure of DNA from his personal point of view, became an international bestseller. In 1977 he received the Medal of Freedom ( "The Presidential Medal of Freedom"), the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Watson was also a co-initiator of the Human Genome Project .

After retirement

James Watson after giving a speech at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on April 30, 2007

He has recently hit the headlines because he advocated not only mapping the human genome , but also because he advocates prenatal genetic studies, which parents provide information about genetic defects in the child before birth. On May 31, 2007, Watson announced that its own genome had been completely sequenced in two weeks for less than $ 1 million .

With provocative remarks, Watson repeatedly triggers controversy and violent criticism of his socio-political ideas. As early as 1997, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera , he spoke out in favor of the right of women to have an abortion if a genetic analysis of the embryo showed that the unborn child was homosexual. He also claimed that blacks had more libido and lower intelligence than whites. Again and again, Watson is therefore accused of racism , sexism and homophobia .

In an interview with the Sunday Times in October 2007, he took the view that blacks are less intelligent than whites and that Africa's future prospects are therefore poor (see above). Watson said he was depressed about the future of Africa as development aid social policies assumed their intelligence was the same as that of Europeans, while all tests said it was not. As a result of this testimony, Watson was suspended from his leadership roles at the institute, but expressed regret over his own statements. In 2019, however, he repeated his statements.

In late 2014, Watson announced that he would be auctioning his Nobel Prize medal at Christie's auction house in New York. This was the first time a living Nobel Prize winner's medal had been sold.

Watson stated that he was forced to take this step, on the one hand because he had run into financial problems after his racist statements, but above all because in the academic world now "nobody wants to admit that he exists" and he himself felt like a non-person . The medal was purchased over the phone from an initially unknown bidder for $ 4.8 million.

A little later, the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov revealed that it was he who had bought the medal at auction and returned it to James Watson because, in his opinion, “a situation in which an outstanding scientist has to sell his medal, which honors his achievements , is unacceptable. "

In January 2019, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory stripped him of his honorary degrees (including those of Chancellor Emeritus, Honorary Trustee, and Professor Emeritus on the Oliver R. Grace Professorship) because Watson renewed his title in the PBS documentary American Masters: Decoding Watson Claim that blacks are less intelligent than whites, had repeated. The institute expressly distanced itself from its statements on the grounds that they lacked a scientific basis and were not in accordance with the principles of the institute.

Fonts

literature

Web links

Commons : James Watson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Watson Biographical . In: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962 . Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1964 ( online [accessed January 26, 2019]).
  2. ↑ a b James D. Watson, Francis HC Crick: Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid . In: Nature . Volume 171, pp. 737-738, April 25, 1953, doi: 10.1038 / 171737a0 .
  3. ↑ Matthew Cobb, Sexism in science: did Watson and Crick really steal Rosalind Franklin's data? , The Guardian, June 23, 2015
  4. ^ Member History: James D. Watson. American Philosophical Society, 2012, accessed December 8, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Resigned after making racist statements. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. Archived from the original on September 19, 2012 ; Retrieved October 25, 2007 .
  6. ^ Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient James D. Watson. In: medaloffreedom.com. Retrieved June 10, 2008 .
  7. ↑ Erika Check: James Watson's genome sequenced. In: Nature . June 1, 2007, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  8. ^ The elementary DNA of Dr Watson. In: Sunday Times . October 14, 2007: “He [Watson] says that he is' inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa 'because' all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really . '"
  9. ^ US scientist sparks race row. In: Al Jazeera . October 19, 2007, archived from the original ; accessed on January 26, 2019 (English).
  10. ↑ DNA discoverer is auctioning off his Nobel Prize. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . November 25, 2014, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  11. ^ Bryony Jones: DNA pioneer James Watson to sell Nobel Prize. In: CNN . November 26, 2014, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  12. ^ Susannah Locke: Why DNA pioneer James Watson just sold his Nobel Prize for $ 4.1 million. In: Vox . December 3, 2014, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  13. ^ A b Russia's Usmanov to give back Watson's auctioned Nobel medal. In: BBC News . December 9, 2014, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Billionaire bought James Watson's Nobel prize medal in order to return it. In: The Guardian . December 9, 2014, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Controversial scientist: Nobel laureate Watson loses honorary title because of racist remarks. In: Spiegel Online. January 14, 2019, accessed January 14, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Statement by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory addressing remarks by Dr. James D. Watson in American Masters: Decoding Watson . Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, January 11, 2019, accessed January 14, 2019 (American English, Institute statement).
personal data
SURNAME Watson, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Watson, James Dewey (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois