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Francis Crick was a pioneer molecular biologist who is credited , along with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins , with discovering the treble genus Helix structure of the DNA molecule . The III won theNobel Prizein Medicine in 1962 for their work .
Early life
Francis Harry Compton Crick was born June 8 , 1916 . His father , Harry , was manager for a factory producing shoes and boots . His female parent , Annie , was a schoolteacher . Francis went to Northampton Grammar School , where he was introduced to basic physic and chemistry . At an early years , he attempted ( unsuccessfully ) to make synthetic silk in the research laboratory .
As a teenager , he won a scholarship to Mill Hill School , a private boys ’ school day in North London . He later on said that he could n’t remember himself as being “ exceptionally precocious , ” but he did recall studying Mendellian Genetics on his own . It interest him , and was not teach in school at the time .
He got a knight bachelor ’s grade in physics from the University of London in 1937 before World War II interrupted his studies . During the war , he work out for the British Admiralty in helping to develop magnetic and acoustic mines .
Francis Crick, shown here in his office is best known for co-discovering, along with James Watson, the structure of the DNA molecule.
Gossip test
bear on his work in physics after the war proved unsatisfying . Crick determine to hold what he called the “ rumormonger test ” to decide his time to come . Crick feel that scientific perceptivity and new uncovering could only come about when a person ’s peculiarity and allegiance were aroused by passionate stake in a topic or motion . He reason that the subjects a person chooses to talk about most often were the key to place that individual ’s true interests .
Crick found that his conversations were overtop by two subjects . He do it to talk about the human mind and cognisance , and about a al-Qur’an he had just read . " What is Life ? The Physical Aspects of the Living Cell , " by Erwin Schrodinger , gravel a question that Crick discover fascinating : “ How can the events of blank and time which take place within the living being be accounted for by natural philosophy and chemistry ? ” Crick settle that his background in cathartic had prepared him to help respond this question .
miss experience in the biological science , Crick knew he require training , so he went to work at Strangeways , a tissue finish science laboratory consort with Cambridge University . He expend the next two long time using familiar methods of physical science , such as quantitative analysis andquantum mechanics , to analyze an unfamiliar field — the cytoplasm within cells . In 1949 , he joined the Medical Research Council unit at the Cavendish Laboratory in London where he began his doctoral inquiry using X - beam diffraction to study the structure of proteins . It was there that he met a young American named James Watson .
At the time , niggling was understand about the forcible and chemical outgrowth ofheredity . Hershey and Chase had demo thatDNA , a molecule feel in the lens nucleus of living cells , was responsible for transmission of inherited info during the formation of new cell . What was not understood was how this appendage worked . How was the information copied from parent cell to daughter cells ? How does a cell use this info to build the protein and execute the other functions necessary for life ? Crick and Watson felt that understanding the three - dimensional social structure of the DNA speck would help do these questions . They decided to try building a optical modelling to help understand the molecular geometry DNA .
It was known that DNA is composed a “ sand ” consisting of repeating wampum / phosphate units and four N groundwork ( adenine , C , T and guanine ) , but how were these arranged ? Were there two or three strands making up the molecule ? Were the nitrogen base configured on the outside or interior of the strand ? kink and Watson presented their first model , which used a three - strand constellation with the bases on the outside . They paired agree nitrogen bases ( for example pair A and adenine or thymine and thymine ) . Visiting scientists , including a young woman namedRosalind Franklin , were harsh in their unfavorable judgment . The model was infeasible ; it answered none of the questions about how DNA could encode or copy genetic data .
Around this clock time , Crick and Watson came across two vital pieces of info . Jerry Donohue , a chemist visit from the U.S. pointed out that the configuration for thymine and G that they were using in their models was incorrect . When Watson used the correct chemical bonding information to trim back out new cardboard poser of each nitrogen base , he made an exciting breakthrough . Using the new chassis it was obvious that the adenine basis would equip absolutely to thymine , and cytosine fit with G . Around the same time , Watson was shown Rosalind Franklin ’s crystal radiograph of DNA , which he realized showed indications that the DNA molecule was doubly - ground and that the nitrogen basis should be put inside sugar / inorganic phosphate spine , like rung inside a ladder .
Crick now understood the implication of the new good example . If the weak atomic number 1 bond oblige the base yoke “ rungs ” of the ladder were discontinue then each one-half of the “ ladder ” could serve as a templet for replicating the information rag by the lodge of N bases . The complementary pairing of adenine with thymine and cytosine with G explained how accurate entropy could be replicated each time a electric cell divides . geminate the groundwork also prove how the molecule was twist into a coil shape . On Feb. 28 , 1953 , Crick fascinated other scientists gathered for the evening at a local pub by announce that he and Watson had “ found the secret of life . ” They presented their findings in the journal Nature , published on May 30 , 1953 .
Studying RNA
Crick ’s most important oeuvre during the fifties and sixties concern how the information in DNA is used by the cellular telephone to form the thousands of proteins necessary for life . In the mid- to recent 1950s , Crick worked with a new squad of scientists to discover how data from DNA , which is stored in the nucleus of the cell , could be transmitted to ribosomes in the cytol , where proteins are synthesise . Crick and others suspected that ribosomal RNA ( rRNA ) was the courier responsible ; an idea that later raise to be wrong .
important amounts of RNA had been observe in ribosomes , and some RNA was present in the nucleus , but there were problems . Strands of rRNA were quite short while the train of amino acids realise up different case of protein could be very prospicient . Secondly , the amount of ribosomal RNA see in the cells of different mintage was constant , while the amount of DNA differs between species . Francis Henry Compton Crick , figure out with Sydney Brenner , discovered that a different eccentric of RNA ( forebode courier RNA ) forms a irregular copy of a portion of the DNA template in the nucleus and transports this written matter to the ribosome . Ribosomal RNA “ reads ” the code , and a third case of RNA ( transfer RNA ) moves through the cell find the correct amino window pane and take them to the ribosome to be assemble into proteins .
wrick next turned his aid to get wind how just four nitrogen bases could perchance encrypt for the 20 amino group dose that are the building block of proteins . It was apparent that radical of bases had to be “ read ” together to code for each case of amino group acid .
The problem was math . Reading the hereditary code in groups of two think of there were only 16 possible combinations ( 4x4 . ) However , if the ribosome read the code in groups of three bases , there were be 64 potential compounding ( 4x4x4 ) and only 20 amino acids . Seymor Benzer coined the terminus “ codon ” to mean a group of three bases in the ribosome and “ anitcodon ” for the corresponding bases on the transfer RNA .
kink hypothesized that conveyance RNA had a group of foundation at one end that would “ plug in ” to a corresponding group on the ribosome . The transfer RNA would pick up an amino acid on one ending and transport it to the ribosome . A group of bases on the other end of the transfer RNA would “ plug into ” a matching group of three bases on the ribosome . The ribosome would then bond the amino acids into a protein mountain range .
In 1961 , Crick proposed an experimentation showing that transfer RNA had to be “ read ” in groups of three . Together with Brenner and Leslie Barnett , he bring in a mutagen that could either add or cancel a base from the messenger RNA transcript of the DNA information . Proteins synthesize from the altered code were deformed from the full point where the summation or deletion take away place . alter proteins were generally malfunctioning .
Crick explain that it was like a sentence made up of three missive - words in which a letter was castrate . Everything following the adjustment would be gibberish .
For object lesson , the following sentence makes sensation : The fat cat ate the big scab .
delete a letter causes a “ phase work shift ” in all the watch over speech .
The resulting sentence would be unrecognisable : Thf atc ata tet heb igr at
In the 1960s , Crick worked with several research teams . One important project “ solve the inherited code , ” show that many amino acids are coded by more than one codon . ( For instance the amino group acid Leucine can be gull by six unlike codons . ) wrick also help oneself identify the “ start ” and “ stop ” codons which inform the ribosome when to block up tote up amino acids to a protein strand and begin a new sequence . He became well known for his power to make with many different people ; leading colleagues into form efficient research team . Others greatly respected the breadth and depth of his knowledge and his ability to correlate selective information from many sources and formulate workable hypothesis .
In 1966 , Crick shifted his enquiry into broad questions . He wanted to know how genes master cell division , cell specialization and electronic organ growth . Together with the teams of research worker he lead , his body of work helped form the fundament of New developmental biology which is one of the most productive areas of enquiry today .
In the 1970s , Crick ’s focus wobble once again . This time he turned to the second of the two passions he had give away when applying the “ chit chat test ” back at the start of his calling . How are the human mind and human awareness accounted for by the physical and chemical processes within the genius ? During this period , Crick scan extensively about newfangled discoveries in the field of neurobiology and developed several important theories .
Notably , he is responsible for the estimate of “ attentional preconception . ” Attentional bias is how the brain screens sensory input about size , shape , colour , movement , etc . , allowing formation a concept and recording label for an objective or consequence while forfend sensory overburden from irrelevant info . Another of Crick ’s possibility was that REM sleep and dreaming are the brain ’s “ theater cleaning ” mechanism to discard irrelevant memory and raise the retentivity of operable memory .
Crick continued to work in the field of battle of neurobiology throughout the 1980s and ' 90s . He issue a book , “ Life Itself , ” in 1981 about evolution and the possibility that microorganisms creditworthy for the first life story on Earth were “ seed ” by intelligence from space . In 1994 , another playscript , " The Astonishing possibility , " explain his research in neurobiology and his belief that “ our minds — the behavior of our brains — can be all explained by the fundamental interaction of face cadre ( and other cells ) without effort by an outside vital military force . ” Although an atheist , he was true enough to let in that , “ I have yet to bring forth any theory that is both novel and also explain the many disconnected data-based facts ( about the human mind ) in a convincing way . ” He was work on another neurobiology book with Christof Koch up until a few solar day before his death from El Salvadoran colon cancer on July 28 , 2004 .
