The Double Helix

Title: The Double Helix – A Personal Account of the Discovery of The Structure of DNA

Author: James D Watson

Publisher:  Touchstone, 2001 (First published 1968)

ISBN: 978-0-7432-1630-2

Pages: 226

The transmission of heredity from parent to offspring was a mystery that long baffled thinkers and scientists over the ages. The clever mechanism by which many traits were passed on, while maintaining differences too, eluded them all. Several options were cited as possibles, but each one was more outlandish than the one it tried to replace. The form of man, reduced to a micro-scale was once thought to reside in a sperm cell which acted as a prototype for zygote development. Even as science, read physics, paced like a steam roller in the first half of 20^th century, biology was far behind in sophistication and technique. Immediately after the second world war, things began to change. The transfer of heredity was suspected to be through proteins first, which was later clarified to be the DNA. Touted as the secret of life, a structure for it had to be found out. The search was eagerly carried out by biologists, chemists and physicists. The race for top spot in biology ended in 1953, when Francis Crick and James D Watson, the author of this book, discovered it to be a double helix and proposed schemes for how it was conveyed from father to son. This event is considered to be the most exalted moment in biology after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Unlike most scientists, Watson was a gifted writer too, giving us his first-hand experience of the major events and personalities involved in the cut-throat race to the prime spot. In a witty account of what went through the scientific world at that time, Watson describes the milestones on the road to discovery.

However eagerly the people searched for the secret, truth lay hidden in the mist of uncertainty and technological incompetence. Microbiological entities being extremely small, no amount of intuition or intellect would reveal its structure until X-ray crystallography and diffraction methods came along. The spark came from an illuminating book by Erwin Schrodinger, noted physicist, published in 1946, titled What is Life?, in which he argued that in order to understand life, genes should be studied in detail. Many books attribute to Schrodinger the credit for identifying genes behind transfer of heredity, but we may suspect that he had copied the idea from the prevailing wisdom of the times. James Watson, an American, went to Europe to study biochemistry, but found it to be uninteresting. He gravitated to DNA research, after coming to know about progress being made in the search for its structure in Britain, particularly by Maurice Wilkins, a physicist himself.

An important scientific discovery is bound to astonish us by the ingenuity of the scientists involved. But on closer inspection, we get to know that subtle moves in the right direction had begun much earlier and he was lucky enough to stand on the shoulders of his colleagues and predecessors in getting a first glimpse of the goal. Linus Pauling, a Nobel laureate in Chemistry and Peace, had discovered at that time that many proteins, which are synthesized with instructions from DNA, had a helical structure. The crystallographic reports of fellow scientists at London, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin had confirmed it. In fact, for a time, it was thought unethical for two of their fellows to work on the same problem. Wilkins had gone much further along the path that Watson humorously declares that such considerations were unquestionably irrelevant in America or elsewhere, but in England alone.

Watson met a fellow British physicist-turned-biologist, Francis Crick at the Cavendish Lab in Cambridge and put together a team. It was true that they were not considered serious workers by even their colleagues at the lab. However, it struck upon them to attempt to create physical models of molecular structure to unravel the internal arrangement of DNA. This method was considered to be too simplistic as against analysis with X-ray crystallography by Wilkins and Franklin who were the leaders in the field at that time. They first hinted that sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA was external to nucleotide bases. This was a crucial step in correctly deducing the double helical structure. Also, Watson was greatly aided by an X-ray image called ‘B-form’, of DNA taken by the team. Unfortunately for Wilkins and Franklin, the continued bickering between them ensured that they couldn’t complete the chain of argument to its logical conclusion. Franklin did not come around to helix until it was too late.

Crick and Watson were stung into rapid action when Linus Pauling announced a three-chain helical model for DNA. However, his model contained a very basic, but serious error overlooked by the great scientist. Watson noted the error, but was afraid to point it out on the apprehension that once Pauling realized his silly mistake, he would leave no stone unturned in racing to the correct solution. Exactly at this point, the B-form photo prompted the lucky pair to arrive at the –thereafter much celebrated – double helix model in 1953. Crick and Watson, along with Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the achievement. Rosalind Franklin died in 1958 due to cancer and hence uneligible to be considered for the prize.

As earlier noted, the book is outstanding for the first-person account of the proceedings. No biographer could include the zeal and enthusiasm of the protagonists in a brief account such as this. It is an excellent memoir, made more exceptional by including some exclusive photographs of major scientific get-togethers from the author’s personal collection. The book is endowed with an excellent introduction by Sylvia Nasar, the author of A Beautiful Mind. She comments that the book is an affectionate paean to a rare friendship and a joyous celebration of the importance of being playful while pursuing a Nobel. The approach of the author is quite candid, as regarding Crick, he says, “most people thought that he talked too much”! Writing on the character of scientists, he says that “One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid” (p.14).

However well intentioned the illustrations are, many do not suit the point under discussion. The molecular diagrams given for aiding comprehension directly go above the heads of most readers. The group portraits of odd international symposia on genetics in which the author participated, look like they were put there just to oblige the author in order to exhaust his stock of images. The description in the main text is also drab to the extreme. Even Watson’s frequent references to how pretty girls enliven the scholarly Cambridge atmosphere turn out to be dutiful remarks to keep the reader in good humour. The narration is competent, but lacks vitality and interest. This is quite unlike Watson’s other book, DNA – The Secret of Life, which was reviewed earlier in the blog, and given a 5-star rating.

The book is recommended for serious readers.

Rating: 2 Star