102-421: 51°31′33″N 0°08′06″W / 51.5257°N 0.1349°W / 51.5257; -0.1349 The Wellcome Library is a free library and Museum based in central London. It was developed from the collection formed by Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936), whose personal wealth allowed him to create one of the most ambitious collections of the 20th century. Henry Wellcome's interest was the history of medicine in
204-677: A British subject. In 1928, he was made an Honorary Vice-President of the Society for Nautical Research . He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1932 Birthday Honours . In 1932, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England . He died of pneumonia in The London Clinic in 1936, aged 82, after an operation. On his death, the Wellcome Trust was established. In his will, Wellcome vested
306-569: A YouTube channel. A selection of images from the Wellcome Library's collections were included in Wellcome Images, from illustrations in manuscripts and rare books to painting, prints and photographs. In January 2014 these images were released under a Creative Commons-Attribution licence for commercial and non-commercial use. 97,455 of these CC-licensed images have been bulk-uploaded to Wikimedia Commons . Wellcome Images also had
408-501: A broad sense and included subjects such as alchemy or witchcraft , but also anthropology and ethnography . Since Henry Wellcome's death in 1936, the Wellcome Trust has been responsible for maintaining the Library's collection and funding its acquisitions. The library is free and open to the public. Henry Wellcome began collecting books seriously in the late 1890s, using a succession of agents and dealers, and by travelling around
510-402: A daughter of orphanage founder Thomas John Barnardo . They had one child, Henry Mounteney Wellcome, born 1903, who was sent to foster parents at the age of about three. He was considered to be sickly at the time, and his parents were spending much time travelling. The marriage was not happy, and in 1909 the couple separated. After that Syrie (as she was known) had several affairs, including with
612-456: A helical structure was not the only possible shape for DNA—so they had a dilemma. In an effort to clarify this issue, Max Ferdinand Perutz later published what had been in the progress report, and suggested that nothing was in the report that Franklin herself had not said in her talk (attended by Watson) in late 1951. Perutz explained that the report was to a Medical Research Council (MRC) committee that had been created to "establish contact between
714-551: A large collection of contemporary clinical and biomedical images from teaching hospitals, research laboratories and photographers throughout the UK and beyond. These were freely available for download for personal, academic teaching or study use, also under Creative Commons licences . In 2017, Wellcome Images was closed and the images made available through the main catalogue search at wellcomecollection.org under Creative Commons and Public Domain licenses. From May 2016 until October 2017,
816-558: A longer article on 12 June 1953). The university's undergraduate newspaper Varsity also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday 30 May 1953. Bragg's original announcement of the discovery at a Solvay conference on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953 went unreported by the British press. In a seven-page, handwritten letter to his son at a British boarding school on 19 March 1953 Crick explained his discovery, beginning
918-615: A pupil at Mill Hill. Crick studied at University College London (UCL), a constituent college of the University of London and earned a Bachelor of Science degree awarded by the University of London in 1937. Crick began a PhD at UCL, but was interrupted by World War II . He later became a PhD student and Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge , and mainly worked at the Cavendish Laboratory and
1020-532: A scientist until the bitter end" according to Christof Koch . Crick was the first son of Harry Crick and Annie Elizabeth Crick (née Wilkins). He was born on 8 June 1916 and raised in Weston Favell , then a small village near the English town of Northampton , in which Crick's father and uncle ran the family's boot and shoe factory. His grandfather, Walter Drawbridge Crick , an amateur naturalist , wrote
1122-461: A second attempt to do so. They asked for, and received, permission to do so from both William Lawrence Bragg and Wilkins. To construct their model of DNA, Watson and Crick made use of information from unpublished X-ray diffraction images of Franklin's (shown at meetings and freely shared by Wilkins), including preliminary accounts of Franklin's results/photographs of the X-ray images that were included in
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#17327727890701224-467: A small audience in Moscow at a 1961 conference. Crick's reaction was to invite Nirenberg to deliver his talk to a larger audience. Watson and Crick's use of DNA X-ray diffraction data collected by Franklin and Wilkins has generated an enduring controversy. It arose from the fact that some of Franklin's unpublished data were used without her knowledge or consent by Watson and Crick in their construction of
1326-662: A small house on the south side of Abington Avenue; he had a shed at the bottom of his little garden where he taught Crick to blow glass, do chemical experiments and to make photographic prints. When he was eight or nine he transferred to the most junior form of the Northampton Grammar School , on the Billing Road. This was about 1.25 mi (2 km) from his home so he could walk there and back, by Park Avenue South and Abington Park Crescent, but he more often went by bus or, later, by bicycle. The teaching in
1428-485: A survey of local foraminifera (single-celled protists with shells), corresponded with Charles Darwin , and had two gastropods (snails or slugs) named after him. At an early age, Francis was attracted to science and what he could learn about it from books. As a child, he was taken to church by his parents. But by about age 12, he said he did not want to go any more as he preferred a scientific search for answers over religious belief. Walter Crick, his uncle, lived in
1530-545: A synthetic DNA. In addition to synthetic DNA there are also attempts to construct synthetic codons , synthetic endonucleases , synthetic proteins and synthetic zinc fingers . Using synthetic DNA, instead of there being 4 codons, if there are n new bases there could be as many as n codons. Research is currently being done to see if codons can be expanded to more than 3 bases. These new codons can code for new amino acids. These synthetic molecules can be used not only in medicine, but in creation of new materials. The discovery
1632-417: A while they were forbidden to make further efforts to find a molecular model of DNA. Of great importance to the model building effort of Watson and Crick was Rosalind Franklin's understanding of basic chemistry, which indicated that the hydrophilic phosphate -containing backbones of the nucleotide chains of DNA should be positioned so as to interact with water molecules on the outside of the molecule while
1734-535: A written progress report for the King's College laboratory of Sir John Randall from late 1952. It is a matter of debate whether Watson and Crick should have had access to Franklin's results without her knowledge or permission, and before she had a chance to formally publish the results of her detailed analysis of her X-ray diffraction data which were included in the progress report. However, Watson and Crick found fault in her steadfast assertion that, according to her data,
1836-531: Is irreversible. During the remainder of his career, he held the post of J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California . His later research centred on theoretical neurobiology and attempts to advance the scientific study of human consciousness. He remained in this post until his death; "he was editing a manuscript on his death bed,
1938-471: Is now managed by the Science Museum , London, and has been in their care since 1976. Many objects from the collection are now on display in the museum's Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries. The Wellcome Collection exhibited a number of objects from Wellcome's collection in "Medicine Man", from 2007-2022. His collection of books, paintings, drawings, photographs and other media is available for viewing at
2040-528: Is relevant both to peptide bonds in proteins and the structure of nucleotides in DNA. In 1951 and 1952, together with William Cochran and Vladimir Vand, Crick assisted in the development of a mathematical theory of X-ray diffraction by a helical molecule. This theoretical result matched well with X-ray data for proteins that contain sequences of amino acids in the alpha helix conformation. Helical diffraction theory turned out to also be useful for understanding
2142-805: Is the oldest document in the Wellcome Library. The largest manuscript collection in the library is the Indic collection, which includes one of the largest Sanskrit collections outside India, numbering approximately 6,500 items. Includes many unpublished European records dating from antiquity to the 20th century - the manuscripts contain material in 25 different languages. The (mainly) 20th century archives concentrate on material in English. They include papers of eminent figures in medical science and related areas (such as Francis Crick and Melanie Klein ) as well as records of numerous and diverse organisations: Approximately 60,000 pre-1851 rare books including c. 600 incunabula (books printed before 1501) and c. 5000 books from
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#17327727890702244-400: Is what made Crick confident that DNA was a double helix with antiparallel chains, but there were other chains of reasoning and sources of information that also led to these conclusions. As a result of leaving King's College for Birkbeck College , Franklin was asked by John Randall to give up her work on DNA. When it became clear to Wilkins and the supervisors of Watson and Crick that Franklin
2346-582: The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He was also an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge , and of University College, London. Crick began a PhD research project on measuring the viscosity of water at high temperatures (which he later described as "the dullest problem imaginable" ) in the laboratory of physicist Edward Neville da Costa Andrade at University College London, but with
2448-578: The New York University Tandon School of Engineering . During World War II, he worked for the Admiralty Research Laboratory , from which many notable scientists emerged, including David Bates , Robert Boyd , Thomas Gaskell , George Deacon , John Gunn , Harrie Massey , and Nevill Mott ; he worked on the design of magnetic and acoustic mines and was instrumental in designing a new mine that
2550-517: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 with Wilkins. When Watson came to Cambridge, Crick was a 35-year-old graduate student (due to his work during WWII) and Watson was only 23, but had already obtained a PhD. They shared an interest in the fundamental problem of learning how genetic information might be stored in molecular form. Watson and Crick talked endlessly about DNA and
2652-733: The United States government and he did not visit the UK until later, at which point he met none of the DNA researchers in England. At any rate he was preoccupied with proteins at the time, not DNA. Watson and Crick were not officially working on DNA. Crick was writing his PhD thesis; Watson also had other work such as trying to obtain crystals of myoglobin for X-ray diffraction experiments. In 1952, Watson performed X-ray diffraction on tobacco mosaic virus and found results indicating that it had helical structure. Having failed once, Watson and Crick were now somewhat reluctant to try again and for
2754-552: The Wellcome Library . In 2003, the Quay Brothers directed a short animated film in tribute to the collection entitled The Phantom Museum . Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist , biophysicist , and neuroscientist . He, James Watson , Rosalind Franklin , and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering
2856-526: The helical structure of the DNA molecule . Crick and Watson's paper in Nature in 1953 laid the groundwork for understanding DNA structure and functions. Together with Maurice Wilkins, they were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". Crick
2958-414: The hydrophobic bases should be packed into the core. Franklin shared this chemical knowledge with Watson and Crick when she pointed out to them that their first model (from 1951, with the phosphates inside) was obviously wrong. Crick described what he saw as the failure of Wilkins and Franklin to cooperate and work towards finding a molecular model of DNA as a major reason why he and Watson eventually made
3060-525: The "elaborate chemical mechanisms that natural selection had evolved over billions of years." He described this transition as, "almost as if one had to be born again". According to Crick, the experience of learning physics had taught him something important—hubris—and the conviction that since physics was already a success, great advances should also be possible in other sciences such as biology. Crick felt that this attitude encouraged him to be more daring than typical biologists who tended to concern themselves with
3162-537: The 16th century. All aspects of medical science and practice are represented, and there are wide and varied holdings in allied subjects. More than 100,000 prints, drawings, paintings, photographs and other media, ranging from the 14th century to the present day, and geographically from Japan and China in the east through Tibet and India to Turkey, Europe and the Americas, with smaller collections dealing with Africa and Australasia. In accordance with Wellcome's philosophy,
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3264-433: The 1940s, some evidence had been found pointing to another macromolecule, DNA, the other major component of chromosomes , as a candidate genetic molecule. In the 1944 Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment , Oswald Avery and his collaborators showed that a heritable phenotypic difference could be caused in bacteria by providing them with a particular DNA molecule. However, other evidence was interpreted as suggesting that DNA
3366-626: The 1980s was the purchase of the manuscripts, and about 10,000 printed books, from the Medical Society of London Library. The Wellcome Library has been renamed more than once. Over the years from the early twentieth century onwards it has been known, formally and informally, as "The Wellcome Reference Library" ( c. 1930 ), "The Wellcome Research Library" (to 1941), "Wellcome Historical Medical Museum and Library" (to 1968), "The Wellcome Historical Medical Research Library" (late 1960s and early 1970s), " Wellcome Institute of (later "for")
3468-661: The DNA double helix structure was made possible by their willingness to combine theory, modelling and experimental results (albeit mostly done by others) to achieve their goal. The DNA double helix structure proposed by Watson and Crick was based upon "Watson-Crick" bonds between the four bases most frequently found in DNA (A, C, T, G) and RNA (A, C, U, G). However, later research showed that triple-stranded, quadruple-stranded and other more complex DNA molecular structures required Hoogsteen base pairing . The entire field of synthetic biology began with work by researchers such as Erik T Kool, in which bases other than A, C, T and G are used in
3570-462: The History of Medicine [Library]," "Wellcome Institute Library" (1980s), "Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine" (early 2000s). The Wellcome Trust's activities around the history of medicine, and on the public understanding of science, were brought together in 1998 to create a new Medicine, Society, and History Division. Recognising a wider remit than history of medicine only,
3672-659: The U.S. branch of the Wellcome pharmaceutical enterprise; in 1993, a $ 400 million gift from the Wellcome Trust enabled BWF to become fully independent from the company, and it became a private, independent biomedical research foundation based in Research Triangle Park , North Carolina . Newly started programmes by the Wellcome Trust include the creation of research training programmes for physicians wishing to pursue careers in academic medicine, which
3774-475: The UK, providing funding for focus areas such as biomedical science , technology transfer , public engagement and bioethics . Grants and fellowships are available to recipients with goals of translating research into usable health products. The trust currently spends over $ 600 million a year in medical research training. In 1955, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) was established as
3876-492: The Watson and Crick model was not the first "bases in" model to be proposed. Furberg's results had also provided the correct orientation of the DNA sugars with respect to the bases. During their model building, Crick and Watson learned that an antiparallel orientation of the two nucleotide chain backbones worked best to orient the base pairs in the centre of a double helix. Crick's access to Franklin's progress report of late 1952
3978-485: The Wellcome Library was host to a Wikimedian in residence , jointly supported by Wikimedia UK . The residency's aims included improving the visibility and use of images from the Wellcome uploaded to Wikimedia Commons , training staff and visitors how to edit, and helping to improve medicine and history of medicine content on Wiki-projects (particularly pages on mental health ). Henry Wellcome Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome FRS (21 August 1853 – 25 July 1936)
4080-606: The age of 16, was invisible ink (in fact just lemon juice ), which he advertised in the Garden City (MN) Herald. He was brought up with a strict religious upbringing, particularly with respect to the temperance movement . His father was a strong member of the Second Adventist Church. He was a freemason . In 1880, Wellcome established a pharmaceutical company, Burroughs Wellcome & Company , with his colleague Silas Mainville Burroughs . They introduced
4182-420: The collection, of over one million total. Most of the non-medical objects were dispersed after his death. He was also a keen archaeologist , in particular digging for many years at Jebel Moya , Sudan , hiring 4000 people to excavate. He was one of the first investigators to use kite aerial photography on an archaeological site, with surviving images available in the Wellcome Library . Wellcome's collection
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4284-404: The conclusion that X-ray diffraction data for DNA indicated that the molecule had a helical structure—but Franklin vehemently disputed this conclusion. Stimulated by their discussions with Wilkins and what Watson learned by attending a talk given by Franklin about her work on DNA, Crick and Watson produced and showed off an erroneous first model of DNA. Their hurry to produce a model of DNA structure
4386-484: The data from King's College, was to guess how the nucleotide bases pack into the core of the DNA double helix. Another key to finding the correct structure of DNA was the so-called Chargaff ratios , experimentally determined ratios of the nucleotide subunits of DNA: the amount of guanine is equal to cytosine and the amount of adenine is equal to thymine . A visit by Erwin Chargaff to England, in 1952, reinforced
4488-409: The daunting problems of biology and not the past successes of physics . For the better part of two years, Crick worked on the physical properties of cytoplasm at Cambridge's Strangeways Research Laboratory , headed by Honor Bridget Fell , with a Medical Research Council studentship, until he joined Max Perutz and John Kendrew at the Cavendish Laboratory . The Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge
4590-402: The department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge , and the author William Somerset Maugham with whom she had a child ( Mary Elizabeth ) and later married. Wellcome sued for divorce in 1915, naming Maugham as co-respondent. The suit attracted large amounts of publicity that he had previously tried to avoid. Syrie never contested Henry's custody of their child, Henry. In 1910, Wellcome became
4692-634: The different groups of people working for the Council". Randall's and Perutz's laboratories were both funded by the MRC. It is also not clear how important Franklin's unpublished results from the progress report actually were for the model-building done by Watson and Crick. After the first crude X-ray diffraction images of DNA were collected in the 1930s, William Astbury had talked about stacks of nucleotides spaced at 3.4 angström (0.34 nanometre) intervals in DNA. A citation to Astbury's earlier X-ray diffraction work
4794-875: The discovery of the double helix model of DNA, Crick's interests quickly turned to the biological implications of the structure. In 1953, Watson and Crick published another article in Nature which stated: "it therefore seems likely that the precise sequence of the bases is the code that carries the genetical information". In 1956, Crick and Watson speculated on the structure of small viruses. They suggested that spherical viruses such as Tomato bushy stunt virus had icosahedral symmetry and were made from 60 identical subunits. After his short time in New York, Crick returned to Cambridge where he worked until 1976, at which time he moved to California. Crick engaged in several X-ray diffraction collaborations such as one with Alexander Rich on
4896-540: The entire share capital of his company in individual trustees, who were charged with spending the income to further human and animal health. The Wellcome Trust is now one of the world's largest private biomedical charities. The first biography of Wellcome was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust in 1939, by A. W. Haggis, a member of staff at the Historical Medicine Museum Wellcome had established. The trustees, however, were dissatisfied with
4998-532: The final draft of 1942, and the biography was never published, although the drafts are freely available for consultation at the Wellcome Library . A biography of Wellcome was written by Robert Rhodes James and published in 1994. In 2009, An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World , written by Frances Larson, was published by Oxford University Press, after both Wellcome's personal and business papers had been catalogued. After Wellcome's death,
5100-666: The first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA , constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time they were working at Oxford University 's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick at Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology . According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see
5202-414: The heavyweight champ." Soon after Crick's death, there have been allegations about him having used LSD when he came to the idea of the helix structure of the DNA. While he almost certainly did use LSD, it is unlikely that he did so as early as 1953. In 1954, at the age of 37, Crick completed his PhD thesis: " X-Ray Diffraction: Polypeptides and Proteins " and received his degree. Crick then worked in
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#17327727890705304-553: The higher forms was satisfactory, but not as stimulating. After the age of 14, he was educated at Mill Hill School in London (on a scholarship), where he studied mathematics, physics , and chemistry with his best friend John Shilston. He shared the Walter Knox Prize for Chemistry on Mill Hill School's Foundation Day, Friday, 7 July 1933. He declared that his success was founded on the quality of teaching he received whilst
5406-430: The idea that it might be possible to guess a good molecular model of its structure. A key piece of experimentally-derived information came from X-ray diffraction images that had been obtained by Wilkins, Franklin, and Gosling. In November 1951, Wilkins came to Cambridge and shared his data with Watson and Crick. Alexander Stokes (another expert in helical diffraction theory) and Wilkins (both at King's College) had reached
5508-407: The income from the foundation, initially via dividends, later via more tax efficient deeds of covenant, was used to fund the Wellcome Trust, providing endowments for pharmacology departments to educate and train the researchers of the future. After changes in UK charity law the foundation was sold to GSK and the receipts invested in a broad ranging portfolio. The trust then became the largest charity in
5610-464: The key features of the protein synthesis process: The adaptor molecules were eventually shown to be tRNAs and the catalytic "ribonucleic-protein complexes" became known as ribosomes . An important step was the realisation by Crick and Brenner on 15 April 1960 during a conversation with François Jacob that messenger RNA was not the same thing as ribosomal RNA . Later that summer, Brenner, Jacob, and Matthew Meselson conducted an experiment which
5712-746: The laboratory of David Harker at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute , where he continued to develop his skills in the analysis of X-ray diffraction data for proteins, working primarily on ribonuclease and the mechanisms of protein synthesis . David Harker, the American X-ray crystallographer, was described as "the John Wayne of crystallography" by Vittorio Luzzati, a crystallographer at the Centre for Molecular Genetics in Gif-sur-Yvette near Paris, who had worked with Rosalind Franklin. After
5814-407: The letter "My Dear Michael, Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery". The letter was put up for auction at Christie's New York on 10 April 2013 with an estimate of $ 1 to $ 2 million, eventually selling for $ 6,059,750, the largest amount ever paid for a letter at auction. Sydney Brenner , Jack Dunitz , Dorothy Hodgkin , Leslie Orgel , and Beryl M Oughton, were some of
5916-448: The library is today (2019) part of Wellcome Collection and aims to promote both the history and understanding of medicine. A collection of books, journals and other print materials, and electronic resources, dealing with the history of all aspects of medical science and practice, as well as allied scientific disciplines, social sciences, and humanities - currently comprises more than 80,000 volumes in many languages, published from 1850 to
6018-528: The library of Joseph Frank Payne , medical historian and librarian of the Royal College of Physicians, purchased in 1911, and the major part of the library of the Munich historian Ernst Darmstaedter, bought in 1930. When Henry Wellcome died, the bulk of his estate and his collection was bequeathed to a body of trustees, who formed the Wellcome Trust . Their primary duty was to use the income generated by
6120-483: The model of the structure of DNA. Orgel also later worked with Crick at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies . Crick was often described as very talkative, with Watson – in The Double Helix – implying lack of modesty. His personality combined with his scientific accomplishments produced many opportunities for Crick to stimulate reactions from others, both inside and outside the scientific world, which
6222-497: The molecular structure of large molecules like proteins and DNA, but there were serious technical problems then preventing X-ray crystallography from being applicable to such large molecules. Crick taught himself the mathematical theory of X-ray crystallography. During the period of Crick's study of X-ray diffraction , researchers in the Cambridge lab were attempting to determine the most stable helical conformation of amino acid chains in proteins (the alpha helix ). Linus Pauling
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#17327727890706324-742: The morning of 28 July 2004 at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Thornton Hospital in La Jolla; he was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. A public memorial was held on 27 September 2004 at the Salk Institute , La Jolla, near San Diego, California; guest speakers included James Watson , Sydney Brenner , Alex Rich , Seymour Benzer , Aaron Klug , Christof Koch , Pat Churchland , Vilayanur Ramachandran , Tomaso Poggio , Leslie Orgel , Terry Sejnowski , his son Michael Crick, and his younger daughter Jacqueline Nichols. A private memorial for family and colleagues
6426-484: The next day; Victor K. McElheny , in researching his biography, "Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution", found a clipping of a six-paragraph New York Times article written from London and dated 16 May 1953 with the headline "Form of 'Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned". The article ran in an early edition and was then pulled to make space for news deemed more important. ( The New York Times subsequently ran
6528-516: The organising principle of what became known as molecular biology. Crick had by this time become a highly influential theoretical molecular biologist. Proof that the genetic code is a degenerate triplet code finally came from genetics experiments, some of which were performed by Crick. The details of the code came mostly from work by Marshall Nirenberg and others who synthesized synthetic RNA molecules and used them as templates for in vitro protein synthesis. Nirenberg first announced his results to
6630-652: The outbreak of World War II (in particular, an incident during the Battle of Britain when a bomb fell through the roof of the laboratory and destroyed his experimental apparatus), Crick was deflected from a possible career in physics. During his second year as a PhD student, however, he was awarded the Carey Foster Research Prize, a great honour. He did postdoctoral work at the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute , now part of
6732-400: The predominant tautomers of the pyrimidine (C and T) bases would be the amine and keto configurations of cytosine and thymine, rather than the imino and enol forms that Crick and Watson had assumed. They consulted Jerry Donohue who confirmed the most likely structures of the nucleotide bases. The base pairs are held together by hydrogen bonds , the same non-covalent interaction that stabilise
6834-816: The present day. The Medical Collection contains printed works of medical and scientific literature published from the 15th century to the present day, including rare books and ephemera. The collection comprises thousands of medical monographs, anatomical atlases, pharmacopoeias and some 20,000 items of medical ephemera, as well as a growing number of electronic resources covering a diverse range of subjects including popular science, consumer health, biomedical science policy, research ethics, science education and public engagement with science. Comprises 12,000 manuscripts and 4,000 printed books in 43 different languages and written on materials including paper, palm leaf, silk, ivory, metal, bone, bamboo and tree bark. A medical prescription from ancient Egypt, written on papyrus (c. 1100 BCE),
6936-462: The protein α-helix. The correct structures were essential for the positioning of the hydrogen bonds. These insights led Watson to deduce the true biological relationships of the A:T and C:G pairs. After the discovery of the hydrogen bonded A:T and C:G pairs, Watson and Crick soon had their anti-parallel, double helical model of DNA, with the hydrogen bonds at the core of the helix providing a way to "unzip"
7038-401: The salience of this important fact for Watson and Crick. The significance of these ratios for the structure of DNA were not recognised until Watson, persisting in building structural models, realised that A:T and C:G pairs are structurally similar. In particular, the length of each base pair is the same. Chargaff had also pointed out to Watson that, in the aqueous, saline environment of the cell,
7140-602: The selling of medicine in tablet form to England under the 1884 trademark "Tabloid". Previously, medicines had been sold mostly as powders or liquids. Burroughs and Wellcome also introduced direct marketing to doctors, giving them free samples. In 1895, Burroughs died, aged 48, leaving the company in the hands of Wellcome. It flourished and Wellcome set up several related research laboratories. In 1924, Wellcome consolidated all his commercial and non-commercial activities in one holding company, The Wellcome Foundation Ltd . In 1901, Wellcome married Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo ,
7242-402: The structural stability needed to hold genetic information in cells. It only remained as an exercise of experimental biology to discover exactly which molecule was the genetic molecule. In Crick's view, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection , Gregor Mendel 's genetics and knowledge of the molecular basis of genetics, when combined, revealed the secret of life. Crick had
7344-486: The structure of collagen . However, Crick was quickly drifting away from continued work related to his expertise in the interpretation of X-ray diffraction patterns of proteins. George Gamow established a group of scientists interested in the role of RNA as an intermediary between DNA as the genetic storage molecule in the nucleus of cells and the synthesis of proteins in the cytoplasm (the RNA Tie Club ). It
7446-511: The structure of DNA. Late in 1951, Crick started working with James Watson at Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge , England. Using " Photo 51 " (the X-ray diffraction results of Rosalind Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling of King's College London, given to them by Gosling and Franklin's colleague Wilkins), Watson and Crick together developed a model for a helical structure of DNA, which they published in 1953. For this and subsequent work they were jointly awarded
7548-491: The transition from the non-living to the living, and how the brain makes a conscious mind. He realised that his background made him more qualified for research on the first topic and the field of biophysics . It was at this time of Crick's transition from physics to biology that he was influenced by both Linus Pauling and Erwin Schrödinger . It was clear in theory that covalent bonds in biological molecules could provide
7650-411: The triplets were used, "magically" producing just the 20 needed combinations. Experimental results were needed; theory alone could not decide the nature of the code. Crick also used the term " central dogma " to summarise an idea that implies that genetic information flow between macromolecules would be essentially one-way: Some critics thought that by using the word "dogma", Crick was implying that this
7752-484: The trust started in October 2010. Also currently, the foundation supports clinicians' research to develop treatments for obesity using natural appetite suppression. Wellcome had a passion for collecting medically related artefacts, aiming to create a Museum of Man. He bought for his collection anything related to medicine, including Napoleon 's toothbrush. By the time of his death, there were 125,000 medical objects in
7854-429: The trust to support ongoing biomedical research, but they were also charged with fostering the study of medical history through the care and maintenance of the collections. A programme of sorting and rationalising was therefore begun, which lasted throughout the 1940s and beyond. The library's story during the later decades of the 20th century has been one of continuing growth and development. A significant addition during
7956-423: The two complementary strands for easy replication : the last key requirement for a likely model of the genetic molecule. As important as Crick's contributions to the discovery of the double helical DNA model were, he stated that without the chance to collaborate with Watson, he would not have found the structure by himself. Crick did tentatively attempt to perform some experiments on nucleotide base pairing, but he
8058-450: The very optimistic view that life would very soon be created in a test tube. However, some people (such as fellow researcher and colleague Esther Lederberg ) thought that Crick was unduly optimistic. It was clear that some macromolecule such as a protein was likely to be the genetic molecule. However, it was well known that proteins are structural and functional macromolecules, some of which carry out enzymatic reactions of cells. In
8160-414: The wetter B form). Wilkins shared this information about the B form of DNA with Crick and Watson. Crick did not see Franklin's B form X-ray images ( Photo 51 ) until after the DNA double helix model was published. One of the few references cited by Watson and Crick when they published their model of DNA was to a published article that included Sven Furberg's DNA model that had the bases on the inside. Thus,
8262-445: The works show the historical and cultural contexts of medicine as well as internal developments in medical techniques and practices. More than 4,000 films and videos and 1,500 audio tapes, both broadcast and non-broadcast, covering the many and varied aspects of medicine: social and clinical areas of science, historical and current topics, physical and psychological aspects of health and surgery. Some of these titles are available through
8364-428: The world to gather whatever could be found. Wellcome's first major entry into the market took place at the auction of William Morris 's library in 1898, where he was the biggest single purchaser, taking away about a third of the lots. His interests were truly international and the broad coverage of languages and traditions is one of the library's strengths. Significant collections acquired during this early period included
8466-498: Was a corresponding set of small "adaptor molecules" that would hydrogen bond to short sequences of a nucleic acid, and also link to one of the amino acids. He also explored the many theoretical possibilities by which short nucleic acid sequences might code for the 20 amino acids. During the mid-to-late 1950s Crick was very much intellectually engaged in sorting out the mystery of how proteins are synthesised. By 1958, Crick's thinking had matured and he could list in an orderly way all of
8568-540: Was a keen collector of medical artefacts which are now managed by the Science Museum, London , and a small selection of which are displayed at the Wellcome Collection . Wellcome was born in a frontier log cabin in what would later become Almond, Wisconsin , to Rev. S. C. Wellcome, an itinerant missionary who travelled and preached in a covered wagon, and Mary Curtis Wellcome. He had an early interest in medicine, particularly marketing. His first product, at
8670-404: Was a rule that could not be questioned, but all he really meant was that it was a compelling idea without much solid evidence to support it. In his thinking about the biological processes linking DNA genes to proteins, Crick made explicit the distinction between the materials involved, the energy required, and the information flow. Crick was focused on this third component (information) and it became
8772-414: Was an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880, which is one of the four large companies to eventually merge to form GlaxoSmithKline . He left a large amount of capital for charitable work in his will, which was used to form the Wellcome Trust , one of the world's largest medical charities. He
8874-429: Was an important theoretical molecular biologist and played a crucial role in research related to revealing the helical structure of DNA. He is widely known for the use of the term " central dogma " to summarise the idea that once information is transferred from nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) to proteins, it cannot flow back to nucleic acids. In other words, the final step in the flow of information from nucleic acids to proteins
8976-514: Was clear to Crick that there had to be a code by which a short sequence of nucleotides would specify a particular amino acid in a newly synthesised protein. In 1956, Crick wrote an informal paper about the genetic coding problem for the small group of scientists in Gamow's RNA group. In this article, Crick reviewed the evidence supporting the idea that there was a common set of about 20 amino acids used to synthesise proteins. Crick proposed that there
9078-528: Was driven in part by the knowledge that they were competing against Linus Pauling. Given Pauling's recent success in discovering the Alpha helix, they feared that Pauling might also be the first to determine the structure of DNA. Many have speculated about what might have happened had Pauling been able to travel to Britain as planned in May 1952. As it was, his political activities caused his travel to be restricted by
9180-418: Was effective against German minesweepers . In 1947, aged 31, Crick began studying biology and became part of an important migration of physical scientists into biology research. This migration was made possible by the newly won influence of physicists such as Sir John Randall , who had helped win the war with inventions such as radar . Crick had to adjust from the "elegance and deep simplicity" of physics to
9282-480: Was going to the new job, and that Linus Pauling was working on the structure of DNA, they were willing to share Franklin's data with Watson and Crick, in the hope that they could find a good model of DNA before Pauling was able. Franklin's X-ray diffraction data for DNA and her systematic analysis of DNA's structural features were useful to Watson and Crick in guiding them towards a correct molecular model. The key problem for Watson and Crick, which could not be resolved by
9384-627: Was held on 3 August 2004. Crick's Nobel Prize medal and diploma from the Nobel committee was sold at auction in June 2013 for $ 2,270,000. It was bought by Jack Wang, the CEO of Chinese medical company Biomobie. 20% of the sale price of the medal was donated to the Francis Crick Institute in London. Crick was interested in two fundamental unsolved problems of biology: how molecules make
9486-544: Was made on 28 February 1953; the first Watson/Crick paper appeared in Nature on 25 April 1953. Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory , where Watson and Crick worked, gave a talk at Guy's Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953 which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the News Chronicle of London, on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life." The news reached readers of The New York Times
9588-433: Was more of a theoretical biologist than an experimental biologist. There was another near-discovery of the base pairing rules in early 1952. Crick had started to think about interactions between the bases. He asked John Griffith to try to calculate attractive interactions between the DNA bases from chemical principles and quantum mechanics . Griffith's best guess was that A:T and G:C were attractive pairs. At that time, Crick
9690-428: Was not aware of Chargaff's rules and he made little of Griffith's calculations, although it did start him thinking about complementary replication. Identification of the correct base-pairing rules (A-T, G-C) was achieved by Watson "playing" with cardboard cut-out models of the nucleotide bases, much in the manner that Linus Pauling had discovered the protein alpha helix a few years earlier. The Watson and Crick discovery of
9792-492: Was one of only eight references in Franklin's first paper on DNA. Analysis of Astbury's published DNA results and the better X-ray diffraction images collected by Wilkins and Franklin revealed the helical nature of DNA. It was possible to predict the number of bases stacked within a single turn of the DNA helix (10 per turn; a full turn of the helix is 27 angströms [2.7 nm] in the compact A form, 34 angströms [3.4 nm] in
9894-518: Was structurally uninteresting and possibly just a molecular scaffold for the apparently more interesting protein molecules. Crick was in the right place, in the right frame of mind, at the right time (1949), to join Max Perutz's project at the University of Cambridge , and he began to work on the X-ray crystallography of proteins. X-ray crystallography theoretically offered the opportunity to reveal
9996-540: Was the centre of his intellectual and professional life. Crick spoke rapidly, and rather loudly, and had an infectious and reverberating laugh, and a lively sense of humour. One colleague from the Salk Institute described him as "a brainstorming intellectual powerhouse with a mischievous smile. ... Francis was never mean-spirited, just incisive. He detected microscopic flaws in logic. In a room full of smart scientists, Francis continually re-earned his position as
10098-473: Was the first to identify the 3.6 amino acids per helix turn ratio of the alpha helix. Crick was witness to the kinds of errors that his co-workers made in their failed attempts to make a correct molecular model of the alpha helix; these turned out to be important lessons that could be applied, in the future, to the helical structure of DNA. For example, he learned the importance of the structural rigidity that double bonds confer on molecular structures which
10200-545: Was the first to prove the existence of messenger RNA. None of this, however, answered the fundamental theoretical question of the exact nature of the genetic code. In his 1958 article, Crick speculated, as had others, that a triplet of nucleotides could code for an amino acid. Such a code might be "degenerate", with 4×4×4=64 possible triplets of the four nucleotide subunits while there were only 20 amino acids. Some amino acids might have multiple triplet codes. Crick also explored other codes in which, for various reasons, only some of
10302-654: Was under the direction of Randall. (Randall had refused Crick's application to work at King's College.) Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins of King's College were personal friends, which influenced subsequent scientific events as much as the close friendship between Crick and James Watson . Crick and Wilkins first met at King's College and not, as erroneously recorded by two authors, at the Admiralty during World War II. Crick married twice and fathered three children; his brother Anthony (born in 1918) predeceased him in 1966. Spouses: Children: Crick died of colon cancer on
10404-546: Was under the general direction of Sir Lawrence Bragg , who had won the Nobel Prize in 1915 at the age of 25. Bragg was influential in the effort to beat a leading American chemist, Linus Pauling , to the discovery of DNA 's structure (after having been pipped at the post by Pauling's success in determining the alpha helix structure of proteins). At the same time Bragg's Cavendish Laboratory was also effectively competing with King's College London , whose Biophysics department
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