NO PLAJERIZING PLEASE! Francis Crick was born on June 8, 1916 in England. His parents were Harry Crick and Annie Elizabeth Wilkins. He had one younger brother named A.F. Crick. He was interested in science since he was little. His father was a shoe factory owner who bought his son a children’s encyclopedia because young Francis had many questions about science. It is said that while Francis was in grade school, he loved to create experiments which sometimes led to chemical explosions. He once won a prize for collecting wild flowers. By the age of 14, Francis won a scholarship to Mill Hill School in North London. He went to collage at the university collage in London to study physics. While in graduate school, World War II broke out. Francis had to leave school to work as a scientist for the British Admiralty, helping their navy in the war. In 1947, he left the Admiralty to study biology. During the war, Francis read a book called What is Life by physist Erwin Schrödinger. Francis became very interested in “the division between living and non-living things”. He decided he needed to learn more about chemistry and biology. In 1949, he joined the medical research council unit to study cells and proteins. In 1951, while working at the Cavendish Laboratory, Francis met an American scientist named James Watson. They were two young, smart scientists with similar ideas about DNA. They helped teach each other about what they each had learned from their studies of protein structure and genetic structure of bacteria. Francis had a lot of knowledge about X-Ray diffraction. In 1953, Crick and Watson began to build a DNA model. They came up with the idea that DNA is shaped like a twisted ladder. They called this ladder the “double Helix”. They took X-Rays of crystallized forms of DNA to prove their theory. Crick and Watson made an announcement that they had found the “Secret of Life”. At first, very few people were interested. It took many years for people to accept Watson and Crick’s important discovery. In 1962, Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize for their work. Francis continued to study DNA to understand coding. He wrote books about the origin of life, consciousness, and the search for the soul. At the end of his life, he worked at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. He died at the age of 88 in 2004 of colon cancer. He studied until the day he died.
Today we can see the huge impact of Francis Crick’s work in many areas of our life. Crick’s discovery laid the foundation for the biotechnology industry of today. Crick’s discoveries contributed to the ability of scientists to engineer bigger and better crops, treat diseases, and helps police solve crimes by using DNA evidence. Our world would be a very different place if Francis Crick were never born.
-staffonline- · Sun Dec 31, 2006 @ 07:34pm · 0 Comments |