James Watson after a speech at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, in 2007. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Watson died on November 6 at the age of 97. He had won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology, or Medicine, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, for their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The scientist, however, courted controversy for his often 'racist' and 'misogynistic' views.
US-born Nobel Laureate James Dewey Watson died on November 6, just three years short of a centenary. The scientist who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins — based on work done in the UK for their joint discovery of the double helix structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) — can be regarded as one of the most powerful illustrations of how brilliant scientists are essentially human, capable of possessing both exceptional intelligence and deeply flawed personal beliefs.
In this instance, Watson's candour, lack of pretence and lack of hesitation about being incorrect or irrational tended to highlight his nature. Despite his groundbreaking discoveries, however, Watson's legacy is tainted by his, at times, racist and misogynistic views, which have been widely circulated and criticised. These views not only made him a subject of controversy throughout his life, but continue to haunt him in death; almost all remembrances that poured in following his death also made references to this negative aspect of his life, including the website of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, which he had nurtured for years.
Watson and Crick revealed the DNA double helical structure as two intertwined, oppositely running strands forming a spiral. This was detailed in their groundbreaking paper published in the journal Nature on April 25, 1953. With precise base-pairing through interactions between the nucleotide bases adenine and thymine or cytosine and guanine, this discovery clarified how DNA stores genetic information and enabled understanding of how accurately information is stored and retrieved during cellular processes.
This discovery has revolutionised biology and medicine by laying the groundwork for a wide range of applications like gene therapy, biotechnology, forensics, and genetic testing, to name a few.
He immortalised the process of deciphering the DNA structure in his wildly successful book, The Double Helix, published in 1968, which offered a vivid, firsthand account with all the ego and excitement of the race to win the Nobel Prize.
Previously, while still a researcher at Harvard University, Watson had written the seminal textbook Molecular Biology of the Gene, which had a major impact on the development of molecular biology. The book was first published in 1965.
The scientist played a pivotal role in reviving and giving new directions to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, first as its director between 1968 and 1974 and then as chancellor between 2004 and 2007, when he was forced to resign over controversies over his comments claiming a genetic link between race and intelligence. Watson had also been a driving force behind the Human Genome Project (HGP) — an international research to find the relative locations of genes in the human chromosomes and to determine the sequence of the nucleotide bases adenine (A), guanine (G), thymine (T) and Cytosine (C) in the human genes, which officially started in 1990 and was declared completed in 2003 — notably pushing for the open and public release of the resulting genomic data.
Watson was born to immigrant parents in Chicago, US, on April 6, 1928. During his early schooling, he demonstrated a strong interest in zoology and natural history before turning his attention to genetics after reading Erwin Schrödinger's famous book, What Is Life?. He received his PhD in 1950 from Indiana University in the United States, where he studied bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — under Nobel laureate Salvador Luria.
A DNA model built by James Watson and Francis Crick, at the Science Museum in London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
After hearing a talk on X-ray diffraction of DNA fibres by Wilkins at a meeting in Naples in 1951, Watson decided that the structure of the DNA could be tackled and headed to the Medical Research Council (MRC) Unit for the Study of the Molecular Structure of Biological Systems in Cambridge, UK, now known as the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB). The MRC Unit was then under the leadership of Austrian-born British biochemist Max Perutz, who in 1960, solved the molecular structure of haemoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein in red blood cells.
Watson came to the growing MRC Unit In September 1951 to work with John Kendrew, who had been working on the structure of myoglobin, an oxygen-binding protein in cardiac and skeletal muscle tissues. Using X-ray diffraction, Kendrew successfully solved the molecular structure of myoglobin, becoming the first person to do so. He and Perutz were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1962 for determining the structures of proteins.
At MRC, Watson met Crick, who was also interested in determining the structure of DNA to know the molecular basis of genetics. They ended up having discussions, sharing ideas and working in the same office.
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Following the publication in 1951 of Nobel laureate, chemist and later peace activist, Linus Pauling's paper proposing the alpha-helical structure in proteins, Crick began working on the theory of helical diffraction, a move that proved essential for the structure of DNA. Based on Pauling's alpha helix protein model, where the protein backbone was on the outside and the amino acid side chains were inside, Watson and Crick proposed a model for DNA, with the phosphate backbone inside and the nucleotide bases outside.
When chemist and X-Ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin was invited to view the model, she pointed out that it was hopelessly wrong. From her experimental results, she knew the phosphate groups must be on the outside, not the inside. After this disastrous error, they were discouraged from continuing the work on DNA at Cambridge by Lawrence Bragg, then the Cavendish Professor — a senior physics faculty position at Cambridge, named after distinguished British physicist and chemist, Henry Cavendish.
However, the challenge was impossible to resist and with several other researchers, including Pauling, working on the problem, Watson and Crick went back to building models again. Later, without Franklin's knowledge, Wilkins showed Watson the renowned Photograph 51, an X-ray diffraction image that provided Watson with important hints about the size of DNA.
Watson suggested the nucleotide bases must be pairing with each other in a complementary manner, such that the base A on one strand occurs opposite base T on the other strand and similarly G with C. This was arrived at using cardboard models and based on the rule that the number of A,T and G,C in DNA were roughly equal — determined in 1950 by Austro-Hungarian born biochemist Erwin Chargaff, who had immigrated to the US. Crick provided the physics that supported this match and verified it using diffraction data. In the Eagle pub in Cambridge, Crick famously announced on February 28, 1953 that they had “found the secret of life”.
Three back-to-back DNA papers were published in Nature in April 1953: Watson and Crick's theoretical model of DNA structure; Wilkins, AR Stokes, and HR Wilson's analysis and X-ray fibre diffraction data of DNA; Franklin and her student Raymond Gosling's structural analysis of calf thymus DNA backed by the famous Photograph 51. The structure of DNA was solved thanks to the experimental data from Franklin, Wilkins and Watson and Crick's model building.
Shortly after this seminal work, Watson turned his attention to RNA — or ribonucleic acid, a nucleic acid present in living cells — where he made groundbreaking discoveries and demonstrated an inquisitive mind that continually sought new scientific challenges.
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However, Watson's racially charged remarks that connected intelligence to race and his overtly misogynistic remarks, which included disparaging Franklin, clouded his career. In his book Double Helix he writes of Rosalind Franklin: “I suspect that in the beginning Maurice [Wilkins] hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice, she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English bluestocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that it could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. But this was not the case. Her dedicated, austere life could not be thus explained, she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family. Clearly, Rosy had to go or be put in her place”.
An image of James Watson from the 1960s. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
In 2000, Watson was quoted as saying: "Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them." He repeatedly supported genetic screening and genetic engineering in public lectures and interviews, arguing that stupidity is a disease and the "really stupid" bottom 10 per cent of people should be cured. He also suggested that beauty could be genetically engineered, saying in 2003, "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great”.
Owing to the backlash against his statements, Watson lost many honours and positions. His remarks on race and IQ in 2007 led the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Board of Trustees to remove him from all administrative roles and his appointment as a CSHL Trustee. When he made similar statements in 2019, the board revoked his Emeritus status and severed all connections with him. The controversy following his 2007 remarks also caused him to lose most of his academic income and positions on the various company boards of which he had been a part. He had to abandon a book tour in 2007 owing to cancelled appearances and widespread outrage. Various high-profile institutions and scientific bodies publicly condemned his remarks and distanced themselves from him.
In 2014, feeling ostracised by the scientific community, he sold his Nobel medal, the Nobel acceptance speech notes scribbled on the stationery of the Grand Hotel in Stockholm and his Nobel prize lecture notes at an auction at Christie’s. He said he did that to gain redemption by donating the proceeds to scientific research.
Few have had as much of an impact on contemporary molecular biology and genetics, according to Nobel laureate and molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan. Yet, despite nurturing generations of scientists, including trailblazing women, Watson's life was tainted by radical racial and gender ideologies. As Ramakrishnan rightly pointed out, however, Watson's scientific contributions will endure beyond his biases.
As a reminder that science, while a pursuit of truth, is conducted by individuals influenced by their own biases and the times in which they operate, this duality highlights the humanity of scientists such as Watson, who are both incredibly brilliant and flawed. Unquestionably, Watson's discoveries revolutionised biology and medicine, but his legacy also serves as a warning about the value of inclusivity and ethics in science.
