In 1962 James Watson (1928- ), Francis Crick (1916- ), and Maurice Wilkins (1916- ) jointly received the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology for their determination in 1953 of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Because the Nobel Prize can be awarded only to the living, Wilkins's colleague Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), who died from cancer at the age of thirty-seven, could not be honored.
James Watson and Francis Crick
The molecule that is the basis for heredity, DNA, contains the patterns for constructing proteins in the body, including the various enzymes. A new understand…
