In the economic slump following World War I, Francis Crick's family moved to London. He went on to study physics at University College in London but the outbreak of World War II interrupted his studies. He joined the British admiralty research laboratory developing radar and magnetic mines for Naval Warfare. He stayed on for 2 years after the war and during the time read What is life? The physical aspects of the living cell by physicist, Erwin Schrodinger. Schrodinger was fascinated with the idea of applying physics to the study of Biology. This exciting Idea provoked trick to switch his Career plans from particle physics to biology.
Cric begin work at a Cambridge University laboratory, learning Biology organic chemistry and x-ray diffraction Technology. By 1949, he was working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge investigating the structures of proteins. The idea of revealing the mysteries of the genetic code is still drove him.
In 1951 or 23 year old American biologist James Watson joined the lab and the two formed a closed working relationship. They work convinced that if the three dimensional structure of a molecule known to play a role in passing genetic information DNA could be determined, then the way jeans are passed on might also be revealed. They made models based on research done in several fields. They were getting closer as our other scientists chasing the same old address was hitting up. Cric and Watson show the result of rosalind Franklin x-ray diffraction studies and a final piece of the puzzle was fitted in 1953 they created a visual model of DNA which over the next few years proved to fit all experimental evidence.
Crick named his home in Cambridge “Golden Helix”. He and Watson shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology / medicine in 1962. Crick continued the study of DNA trying to understand the way genetic information was coded. In 1962 he also become director of Cambridge University is Molecular Biology Laboratory and a non-resident fellow of the Shalk institute in California. In 1966 he wrote Of molecules and men describing the implications of the recent revolutions in biochemistry. His interest turned to neurobiology particularly vision and the function of dreams in 1981, he wrote Life itself : Its origin and nature in which he suggested that the seed for life on earth may have come from another planet.
He felt that “Almost all aspects of life or Engineer at the molecular level and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself”. Francis Crick died in 2004.
Comments
Post a Comment