DNA discoverer James Watson now dreams of curing genetic diseases

Journal Article · Fri Dec 15 04:00:00 EST 1989 · JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.262.23.3340· OSTI ID:6698660

Breo, D L

The best-selling The Double Helix, published 20 years ago, describes the events that had led to the discovery by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the building block of genes and heredity. At the time, the 25-year-old Watson was widely perceived as arrogant, brash, gawky, and intense. Subsequent events did little to change that impression. Today, at age 61, James Dewey Watson is still an angry young man. As director since 1968 of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, NY, and as director since 1988 of the National Center for Human Genome Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he is coordinating the attempt to decipher biology's deepest secrets: the mapping, sequencing, and defining of the estimated 50,000 to 100,000 human genes arranged over the 23 pairs of chromosomes. The results, expected by early next century, may reveal the chemical script of life and help solve the riddles of inherited genetic diseases and certain cancers.

• OSTI ID: 6698660
• Journal Information: JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association; (USA), Journal Name: JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association; (USA) Vol. 262:23; ISSN 0098-7484; ISSN JAMAA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

550400* -- Genetics
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
CHROMOSOMES
COORDINATED RESEARCH PROGRAMS
DISEASES
DNA
DNA SEQUENCING
GENES
GENETIC MAPPING
HEREDITARY DISEASES
HETEROCHROMOSOMES
HUMAN POPULATIONS
MAPPING
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
NUCLEIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
POPULATIONS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
STRUCTURAL CHEMICAL ANALYSIS