21
August 2003
DNA: First to the helix
"I think you're a couple of old rogues but you may well have somethingÉ as I was back again on helical schemes I might, given a little time, have got it. But there is no good grousing — I think it's a very exciting notion and who the hell got it isn't what matters." So wrote Maurice Wilkins in a note to Francis Crick, following a visit to Cambridge to see the model of the DNA double helix built by Crick and James Watson. Wilkins' words are, says Watson Fuller, an expression of an attitude now all too rare, that both the scientific and the wider community should applaud. In this week's Commentary, Fuller takes a look back at the key role played by Maurice Wilkins in the historic discovery of the DNA helix.
Who said 'helix'?
WATSON FULLER
Right and wrong in the story of how the structure of DNA was discovered.
Nature 424, 876–878 (2003); doi:10.1038/424876a
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