"James Watson, who won a Nobel Prize for his role in discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, has died aged 97. "The elucidation of the structure of the double helix goes down, along with Mendel and Darwin, as the three greatest discoveries in biology," says Bruce Stillman, president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - which Watson led for decades and helped transform into a biology powerhouse."
"But the DNA discovery was tarnished by Watson and Francis Crick using data from X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin without her permission and without due credit. And Watson later turned himself into a scientific pariah by tenaciously expressing racist and sexist opinions - for example, that Black people are less intelligent than white people. Cold Spring cut ties with him and Watson sold his Nobel medal."
James Watson played a central role in discovering DNA's double-helix structure and helped build modern molecular biology institutions. He led Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for decades and helped initiate the Human Genome Project. Watson acted as a prominent teacher and mentor who supported many scientists early in his career. The double-helix discovery was marred by the use of Rosalind Franklin's X-ray data without her permission or proper credit. Later in life Watson expressed persistent racist and sexist views, which led institutions to sever ties and diminished his scientific standing and legacy.
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