James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double helix, the name every biology student has underlined at least once in a textbook, has passed away at the age of 97. In one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 20th Century, he identified the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953 alongside British scientist Francis Crick, setting the stage for rapid advances in molecular biology. Along with fellow researchers Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of DNA’s double helix shape.
James D. Watson was born on April 6, 1928, in the United States. By the age of eleven, Watson was already joining his father on a birdwatching walk. So early on, he heard of Charles Darwin, the architect of the theory of evolution by natural selection
Later, as a zoology major at the University of Chicago, Watson came across a review in the Chicago Paper of a book called “What is Life?” by the great physicist Erwin Schrodinger. And that was a question he wanted to know. While Darwin explained life after it began but what was the essence of life itself? Schrödinger suggested that life’s essence lay in information carried in chromosomes and that this information must exist on a molecule.
Watson had never truly thought about molecules in this way before. The notion that this information could be digital and that it could be copied ignited a determination in him: he would become a geneticist.
His journey led him to Indiana, where he got the impression that genes were like DNA. By the time he completed his PhD, he was ready to pursue DNA itself. Watson first went to Copenhagen, hoping to train as a biochemist, but this path wasn’t going anywhere toward saying what the gene was.
It was at a meeting in Italy that he met Maurice Wilkins, who hinted that DNA could indeed be the hereditary molecule on chromosomes and showed an X-ray photograph of DNA. Watson wanted to work with Wilkins, but the former birdwatcher was not what Wilkins had in mind.
Eventually, he went to the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge because it was the best place in the world for X-ray crystallography. There, Watson met Francis Crick, a 35-year-old physicist, while he himself was just 23. They worked together at the University of Cambridge in the UK, solved the structure of DNA within a few years of their first meeting. In 1953, they published a seminal paper in Nature titled A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.
But the discovery of the DNA helix was turned into a big controversy. Watson and Crick elucidated the complex structure with the help of data and ideas from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, who were working at King’s College London at the time. Some of this data was taken without Franklin’s permission.
Wilkins was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 with Watson and Crick. Franklin had died of ovarian cancer 4 years earlier at the age of 37, and so was ineligible for the award.
In 2022, a few experts visited Franklin’s archive at Churchill College in Cambridge, UK, and went through her notes, reconstructing the development of her ideas. They found a hitherto unstudied draft news article from 1953, written in consultation with Franklin and for Time Magazine. They also found a letter from one of Franklin’s colleagues to Crick. These documents reveal a different account of the discovery of the double helix. Franklin did not fail to grasp the structure of DNA; she was an equal contributor to solving it.
Today, when we pay homage to D. Watson, getting Franklin’s story right is crucial because she has become a role model for women going into science. She was up against not just the routine sexism of the day, but also more subtle forms embedded in science, some of which are still present today.
The Living Legacy of Watson’s Double Helix
Watson’s discovery didn’t just change biology; it changed humanity’s relationship with life itself. The double helix he had helped to reveal became the foundation for nearly every medical and forensic breakthrough of the modern era. Diseases that once seemed untouchable, like cancer, genetic disorders, or even pandemics, are now being challenged through therapies rooted in the structure Watson helped uncover.
DNA testing now plays a crucial role in identifying criminals, helping to identify criminals and clear the innocent, and solving forensic cases worldwide. The first conviction based on DNA profiling in 1988 marked a moment when Watson’s scientific curiosity reached the courtroom.
Every cloned gene, every sequenced genome, and every life saved through DNA technology is a living tribute to James Watson’s vision. His discovery didn’t end in a lab. It continues to pulse in every vaccine, every diagnosis, and every act of justice shaped by the language of our genes.
Memorizing Names, Not Ideas: Pakistan’s Science in Stagnation
And yet, as the world celebrates Watson’s contributions, we in Pakistan must confront a difficult question: what have we done with this inheritance of knowledge? It has been seven decades since the discovery of the structure of DNA milestone every student of biology in the country remembers; the national contribution to molecular biology remains small.
Our research infrastructure lags, our universities struggle with underfunding, and the brightest minds usually have to move abroad to seek recognition. We have built institutions, not intellectual ecosystems.
If we truly want to honor Watson, we must ensure that Pakistan’s young scientists inherit more than textbooks. They must inherit vision. Let us build research labs that are alive with questions. Let us give our scientists freedom to experiment, to fail, and to learn. Let us celebrate those who think, not just those who memorize.
James Watson once said, “Knowing ‘why(an idea) is more important than learning ‘what” (the fact).” Perhaps, that is the very message Pakistan needs most today.
Despite being involved in several controversies and being largely disliked due to his racist and sexist remarks, D Watson his academic accomplishments place him as one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. His work opened the door to entirely new fields of study, bringing us insights into how hereditary information is stored.
References:
- https://youtu.be/2HgL5OFip-0?si=UksTfb5Fqw3DyagH James Watson: How we discovered DNA
- https://youtu.be/-jaM9Kwq9EM?si=Dvo5xeMa9Vw7FNmg Dr. James Watson interview
- https://www.newscientist.com/article/2503570-james-watson-co-discoverer-of-dnas-double-helix-has-died-aged-97/
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03380-2
More from the Author: Antibiotics in Chicken Farming: A Recipe for Disaster in the Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance
Hadia Rashid is a BS (Hons.) student of Applied Microbiology at UVAS Lahore. Passionate about science communication, she writes to bridge the gap between research, the environment, and society.
