25th Apr 1953 - 64y ago, three papers by James Watson & Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin made a difference in biology & science

The noble laureate paper by Watson and Crick [1] was a “theoretical conversation….with…..little experimental activity” [2] which was based on the important findings from Erwin Chargaff [3], Alfred Hershley and Martha Chase [4] and the X-ray diffraction study of DNA by Rosalind Franklin & Raymon Gosling [5] and the group of Maurice Wilkins [6]. All three papers [1, 5, 6] in 1953 were published within the same Nature volume.

At the end this led to

- the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 1955 by Kleppe and Moulineux [7, 8] and

- its important modification by Mullis in 1983 – a clear consecutive revolution of biology and science [9].

However, it was a pitty, that the Noble award 1962 could be provided to Watson & Crick and Maurice Wilkins only, but not to Rosalind Franklin, because her X-ray diffraction study of DNA and its mathematic analysis was “the” basis for the discovery, as she passed away earlier in 1958.

However, it may be also mentioned, that the Austrian-Hungarian Chemist Erwin Chargaff was also not taken account for it.

For further reading please feel free using the references below [1-10].

[1] Watson JD, Crick FH: Molecular structure of nucleic acids; a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 1953;171:737–738

[2] Friedman M, Friedland GW: Medicine’s 10 greatest discoveries. Yale University Press;1998

[3] Chargaff E, Zamenhof S: Human desoxypentose nucleic acid: composition of human desoxypentose nucleic acid. J Biol Chem 1948;173:327

[4] Hershey JG, Chase M: Independent functions of viral protein and nucleic acid in growth of bacteriophage. J Gen Physiol 1952;36:39-56

[5] Franklin RE, Gosling R: Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate. Nature 1953;171:740–741

[6] Wilkins MHF, Stokes AR, Wilson HR: Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids. Nature 1953; 171: 738-740.

[7] Kleppe K, Ohtsuka E, Kleppe R, Molineux I, Khorana HG: Studies on polynucleotides. XCVI. Repair replications of short synthetic DNA's as catalyzed by DNA polymerases. J Mol Biol 1971;56:341–361.

[8] Mullis K, Faloona F, Scharf S, Saiki R, Horn G, Erlich H: Specific enzymatic amplification of DNA in vitro: the polymerase chain reaction. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 1986;51:263-273.

[9] Saiki RK, Gelfand DH, Stoffel S, Scharf SJ, Higuchi R, Horn GT, Mullis KB, Erlich HA: Primer-directed enzymatic amplification of DNA with a thermostable DNA polymerase. Science 1988;239:487-491.

[10] Brücher BLDM, Jamall IS: Somatic Mutation Theory: Why it’s Wrong for Most Cancers. Cell Physiol Biochem 2016; 38: 1-18.