Francis Crick

Francis Crick
Francis Crick in 1995
Born	8 June 1916 Weston Favell, Northamptonshire, England
Died	28 July 2004(2004-07-28) (aged 88) La Jolla, San Diego, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Colon cancer
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University College London University of Cambridge
Known for	DNA structure, consciousness
Awards	Nobel Prize (1962)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics, Molecular biology
Institutions	Institute for the Furtherment of Genetic Studies
Doctoral advisor	Max Perutz

Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was a British physicist, biologist and humanist.^[1]

He is one of those who worked out the structure of DNA. Using X-ray crystallography results from Maurice Wilkins' biophysics team at King's College London, Crick and James Watson discovered that DNA has what is called a "double helix structure".^[2]

This means that DNA is made of two chains wound round each other to make a spiral. Only one of the chains carries information, but the two chains together makes the molecule more stable. DNA is the basis of heredity for almost all forms of life today.

Crick, Watson and Wilkins won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1962. Their work sparked a huge amount of research in molecular and cell biology and, as a result, many subsequent Nobel awards have been made.

1. ↑ Crick, Francis. 1966. Why I am a Humanist. Varsity, the University of Cambridge newspaper. [1]^{[permanent dead link]}
2. ↑ "Francis Crick - Biography". nobelprize.org. Retrieved April 11, 2010.