Dna The Blue Print Of Life

Blue print of life

Part1

DNA consists of two chains twisted around each other, or double helixes, of alternating phosphate and sugar groups, and that the two chains are held together by hydrogen bonds between pairs of organic bases—adenine (A) with thymine (T), and guanine (G) with cytosine (C).

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The background for the work of the four scientists was formed by several scientific breakthroughs; the progress made by X-ray crystallographers in studying organic macromolecules; the growing evidence supplied by geneticists that it was DNA, not protein, in chromosomes that was responsible for Hereditary characteristics. Erwin Chargaff’s experimental finding that there are equal numbers of A and T bases and of G and C bases in DNA; and Linus Pauling’s discovery that the molecules of some proteins have helical shapes—arrived at through the use of atomic models and a keen knowledge of the possible disposition of various atoms.

James Watson

James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928)

James Watson worked with Francis Crick on one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century to determine the double helix, structure of DNA.

He also suggested that it was the pairing of the of bases A-T and C-G that made it possible for DNA to replicate itself. This model of the DNA double helix became an important item of research in the areas of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.

Francis Crick

Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004)

In 1951, together with William Cochran and Vladimir Vand, Crick assisted in the development of a mathematical theory of X-ray diffraction by a helical molecule. This theoretical result matched well with X-ray data obtained for proteins that contain sequences of amino acids in the Alpha helix conformation. Helical diffraction theory turned out to also be useful for understanding the structure of DNA.

Late in 1951, Crick started working with James D. Watson at Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge,...