Molecular Biology

A draft manuscript shows how near Rosalind Franklin came to finding the correct structure of DNA.

It seems that more molecular biologists are born under Aries than any other sign.

“Much has been written about the philosophical consequences of molecular biology. I think it is now clear what the entire enterprise is about. We are looking at a rather special part of the physical universe which contains special mechanisms none of which conflict at all with the laws of physics.”

Linus Pauling reviews his work on the molecular basis of biological specificity and remembers his erroneous conception of a three-chain helix structure for DNA in 1952.

“Nucleic acids bulk so large in the composition of cells that it seems certain that these substances are involved in some important biological functions. Nevertheless, with one exception [bacterial transformation], there has been no proof of a specific biological function mediated by one of these palynucleotides; no enzyme, hormone, vitamin, or even vague ‘growth substance’ has been found to be a nucleic acid.”

“And now the announcement of Watson and Crick about DNA. This is for me the real proof of the existence of God”. (Salvador Dali, 1964).

Francis Crick reviews the papers published 21 years ago on the structure of DNA and the reaction to them.

In remembering, without nostalgia, the dawn of molecular biology, Dr Chargaff deplores the loss of innocence that science has suffered in his lifetime.

Dr Gurdon discusses the introduction of purified macromolecules, such as nucleic acids and proteins, into living cells in controlled amounts and in such a way that they function normally.