Double helix discovery

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick determined that the structure of DNA was a double helix. This discovery best helped them —... 

The polycondensation of several nucleoside monophosphates gives oligonucleotides (up to 40-50 units). If the chain is even longer, the polymer is referred to as a polynucleotide. Initial experiments on the polycondensation of nucleotides to give longer chains were carried out about ten years after the discovery of the DNA double helix (G. Schramm, Sect. 6.3). 

Watson and Crick s discovery of the structure of DNA revolutionized scientists understanding of heredity and genetics. Find out how Watson and Crick showed that the structure of DNA is a double helix. How did Rosalind Franklin s work in X-ray crystallography play a role Present your findings as an annotated, illustrated time line. 

The most famous stracture in aU chemistry is the Watson-Crick double helix for DNA (figure 12.3). The discovery of this structure by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 was the beginning of molecular biology. An amazing number of insights about the nature of life have been derived from this structure. 

The Watson-Crick double helix is the outcome of three lines of work. The first is the discovery by Erwin Chargaff of Chargaff s rules." Specifically, for all normal DNAs, A = T, G = C and A + G = C + T. The actual content of each base in DNA varies from species to species over a wide range. Despite this variation, the content... 

U.S. Department of Education (1991). Historically black colleges and universities and higher education desegregation. Washington, DC U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. Watson, J. D. (1968). The double helix A personal account cf the discovery of the structure ofDNA. New York Atheneum. 

In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery that the structure of DNA is a double helix. This double helix is made up of two chains of DNA bound to each other by the ability of each A base to form a weak chemical bond to a T base and each C to a G. The bases only paired with their base partners, so that where one strand had a T, the other had an A, and where one had a C, the other had... 

The experiment was published in 1953 (Miller, 1953), the same year as the discovery of the double helix by Watson and Crick, a memorable year indeed for biochemistry. 

There are other ways in which nucleic-acid-related compounds could be exploited as therapeutics. A new, emerging area concerns the application of RNA as a dmg. The discovery of catalytic RNA (ribozymes) by Cech and Altman was a fundamental advance in nucleic acid chemistry. According to traditional double helix dogma, RNA was a passive information-transmitting molecule. The identification of ribozymes enabled the conceptual advance that RNA can also act as a catalyst for the following biochemical processes ... 

Olby, RC. (1994) The Path to the Double Helix The Discovery of DNA, Dover Publications, Inc., New York... 

Watson, J.D. (1968) The Double Helix A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, Atheneum, New York [Paperback edition, Ibuchstone Books, 2001.]... 

The year 2003 is the tenth anniversary of the first Femtochemistry Conference and the fiftieth anniversary of Watson and Crick s celebrated discovery of the DNA double helix [1], Remarkable progress has been made in both fields femtosecond spectroscopy has made decisive contributions to Chemistry and Biology, and advances in the elucidation of static nucleic acid structures have profoundly transformed the biosciences. However, much less is known about the dynamical properties of these complex macromolecules. This is especially true of the dynamics of the excited electronic states, including their evolution toward the photoproducts that are the end result of DNA photodamage [2],... 

The presence of RNA in the cytoplasm had been linked to protein synthesis by experiments done in the early 1940s. After the discovery of the double helix, the concept followed quickly that DNA was the master "blueprint" from which secondary blueprints or transcripts of RNA could be copied. The RNA copies, later identified as messenger RNA (mRNA), provided the genetic information for specifying protein sequence. The flow of information from DNA to RNA to proteins could be symbolized as in Eq. 26-1. 

The nucleic acids are among the most complex molecules that you will encounter in your biochemical studies. When the dynamic role that is played by DNA in the life of a cell is realized, the complexity is understandable. It is difficult to comprehend all the structural characteristics that are inherent in the DNA molecules, but most biochemistry students are familiar with the double-helix model of Watson and Crick. The discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA is one of the most significant breakthroughs in our understanding of the chemistry of life. This experiment will introduce you to the basic structural characteristics of the DNA molecule and to the forces that help establish the complementary interactions between the two polynucleotide strands. 

James D. Watson, The double helix. Harmondsworth Penguin, 1968. [ A personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA, written by a Nobel Prize Winner in the style of a picaresque novel.]... 

Discovery of the Original Crick-Watson Double Helix... 

The spectacular discoveries in the area of nucleic acids started with the work of the British scientists Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins, who were the first to describe the molecular structure of DNA as a double helix made up of two twisted strands. They were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries. 

J. S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (New Haven and London Yale University Press, 1999) R. Olby, The Path to the Double Helix The Discovery of DNA, enlarged edition (New York Dover Publications, 1994) R.E. Kohler, From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry The Making of a Biomedical Discipline (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1982). 

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