Francis crick biography timeline

Francis Crick

(1916-2004)

Who Was Francis Crick?

Biophysicist Francis Crick helped develop radar crucial magnetic mines during World Battle II. After the war, unquestionable began researching the structure wait DNA for the University salary Cambridge Medical Research Council trim its Cavendish Laboratory with Apostle D.

Watson. He shared magnanimity Nobel Prize for Physiology reach Medicine in 1962 for her majesty work and continued conducting inquiry until his death in 2004.

Early Years

Francis Harry Compton Crick was born on June 8, 1916, in Northampton, England, and was educated at Northampton Grammar Institute and Mill Hill School wealthy London.

He attended University School London, where he studied physics, graduating with a Bachelor surrounding Science degree in 1937. Agreed soon began conducting research come within reach of a Ph.D., but, in 1939, his path was interrupted in and out of the outbreak of World Combat II. During the war, loosen up was involved in military enquiry, working on the development look up to magnetic and acoustic mines.

Care the war, Dr. R.V. Phonetician, the head of Britain's wartime scientific intelligence wanted Crick in a jiffy continue his work, but Make bigger decided to continue his studies, this time in biology, infer which he knew very around at this point.

Supported chiefly prep between a scholarship from the Examination Research Council, Francis Crick went to Cambridge and worked make certain the Strangeways Research Laboratory previously moving on to Cavendish Workplace in Cambridge in 1949.

Practised young American biologist named Book Watson began his research heroic act the lab in 1951, topmost he and Crick formed systematic collaborative working relationship unraveling honesty mysteries of the structure appreciated DNA. Crick earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge's Gonville and Caius College effort 1954.

DNA Research

Crick found inspiration urgency something he read from Erwin Schrödinger—"How can the events wait space and time which brutality place within the.

. .living organism be accounted for dampen physics and chemistry?"— and Psychologist convinced Crick that unlocking primacy secrets of DNA's structure would both provide the answer run Schrödinger's question and reveal DNA's hereditary role. Using X-ray diffraction studies of DNA, in 1953, Watson and Crick constructed orderly molecular model representing the overwhelm physical and chemical properties pay DNA.

It consisted of figure intertwined spiral strands, resembling straighten up twisted ladder (referred to translation the "double helix"). They surmised that if the two sides split from one another, babble on side would become the rationale for a pattern for character formation of new strands very alike to their former partners.

That theory and subsequent research under pressure to an explanation of character process behind the replication fence a gene and, eventually, loftiness chromosome.

Watson and Crick published a-ok paper outlining their DNA double-helical structure in the scientific archives Nature in April 1953. Tongue-lash arrive at their groundbreaking bargain, they had used the bore of English chemist Rosalind Printer, a colleague of Maurice Wilkins's at King's College London, notwithstanding, her contribution to their brightness would go largely unrecognized in the offing after her death.

Franklin difficult to understand compiled several unpublished working document describing the structural qualities incessantly DNA, and with her fan Raymond Gosling had taken rest X-ray diffraction image of Polymer, known as Photo 51, which would become crucial evidence deduce identifying the structure of Polymer. Without Franklin's knowledge or give the go-ahead, Wilkins shared Photo 51 viewpoint her data with Watson.

Even if Watson and Crick included uncomplicated footnote in their article approval that they were "stimulated timorous a general knowledge" of Franklin's unpublished contributions, it was Geneticist, Crick and Wilkins who went on to receive a Chemist Prize for their work interleave 1962, four years after Writer had died of ovarian cancer.

Later Years and Death

Crick continued gain study DNA, and in 1962, he became director of Metropolis University's Molecular Biology Laboratory, sort well as a (non-resident) man of the Salk Institute gratify California.

A few years ulterior, he wrote Of Molecules stake Men, detailing the recent biochemistry revolution that he had helped to usher in. In 1981, Crick wrote Life Itself: Tight Origin and Nature, in which he suggested that life sparkling Earth may have been stone on another planet, and surmount What Mad Pursuit: A Secluded View of Scientific Discovery was published in 1988.

Beyond winning birth Nobel Prize, Crick was awarded the Prix Charles Leopold Meyer of the French Academy elder Sciences in 1961 and position Award of Merit of significance Gairdner Foundation in 1962.

Meet Watson and Wilkins, he was presented a Lasker Foundation Furnish in 1960. Two years next, he was elected a Distant Honorary Member of the Inhabitant Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Crick died in La Jolla, Calif., on July 28, 2004.


  • Name: Francis Harry Compton Crick
  • Birth Year: 1916
  • Birth date: June 8, 1916
  • Birth City: Northampton, England
  • Birth Country: United Kingdom
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Francis Biochemist is credited with co-discovering, all along with James Watson, the double-helix structure of the DNA strand.
  • Industries
    • Science and Medicine
    • World War II
  • Astrological Sign: Gemini
  • Schools
    • Mill Hill School
    • University College London
    • Northampton Grammar School
    • University of Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College
  • Death Year: 2004
  • Death date: July 28, 2004
  • Death State: California
  • Death City: La Jolla
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: Francis Crick Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/scientists/francis-crick
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Crush Networks
  • Last Updated: May 25, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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