James D. Watson

James Watson
James Watson
Born	James Dewey Watson (1928-04-06) April 6, 1928 (age 88) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Nationality	United States
Fields	Genetics
Institutions	Indiana University Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Laboratory of Molecular Biology Harvard University University of Cambridge National Institutes of Health
Alma mater	University of Chicago (B.S., 1947) Indiana University (Ph.D., 1950)
Thesis	The Biological Properties of X-Ray Inactivated Bacteriophage (1951)
Doctoral advisor	Salvador Luria
Doctoral students	Mario Capecchi Bob Horvitz Charles Kurland Peter D. Moore Joan Steitz
Other notable students	Ewan Birney Ronald W. Davis (postdoc) Phillip Allen Sharp (postdoc) Richard J. Roberts (postdoc) John Tooze (postdoc)
Known for	DNA structure Molecular biology
Notable awards	Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1960) Nobel Prize (1962) John J. Carty Award (1971) ForMemRS (1981) EMBO Membership (1985) Copley Medal (1993) Lomonosov Gold Medal (1994)
Spouse	Elizabeth Watson (née Lewis) (m. 1968)
Signature

External video

James Watson: Why society isn't ready for genomic-based medicine, 2012, Chemical Heritage Foundation

James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin. Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were 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".

Watson earned degrees at the University of Chicago (B.S., 1947) and Indiana University (Ph.D., 1950). Following a post-doctoral year at the University of Copenhagen with Herman Kalckar and Ole Maaloe, later Watson worked at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory in England, where he first met his future collaborator and friend Francis Crick.

From 1956 to 1976, Watson was on the faculty of the Harvard University Biology Department, promoting research in molecular biology. From 1968 he served as director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), greatly expanding its level of funding and research. At CSHL, he shifted his research emphasis to the study of cancer, along with making it a world leading research center in molecular biology. In 1994, he started as president and served for 10 years. He was then appointed chancellor, serving until he resigned in 2007 after making controversial comments claiming a link between intelligence and race. Between 1988 and 1992, Watson was associated with the National Institutes of Health, helping to establish the Human Genome Project.

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