James Watson, Nobel Prize winner, American biologist and one of the discoverers of the double helix form of DNA, died on Thursday at the age of 97. Watson died at a hospice in East Northport on Long Island, New York.
The news was confirmed by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for most of his career.
Watson was transferred to hospice this week from a hospital where he was being treated for an infection, the New York Times reported, citing his son Duncan.
Nobel Prize
Watson won the 1962 Nobel Prize, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, for discovering that deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a double helix, made up of two strands that wind around each other to create what resembles a long, gently winding staircase, the AP reported.
The career and controversies of James Watson
According to the New York Times, Watson lived on the territory of the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory. In 1968, he took over as director and turned it into one of the world’s largest microbiology centers. In 1993, he stepped down from that position and took up the mostly honorary position of chancellor.
Watson was ostracized by the scientific establishment after his reputation was tarnished by comments about genetics and race.
A NYT report claims his official career there ended in disgrace in 2007 after he caused an uproar by suggesting in an interview with The Sunday Times in London that black people are primarily not as intelligent as white people.
How James Watson’s discovery helped
Watson’s discovery played a crucial role in medicine, crime fighting, genealogy and ethics,
The discovery helped identify human remains and crime suspects through DNA samples and trace family trees.
Watson had never made such discoveries in the laboratory. But in the decades that followed, he wrote influential textbooks and best-selling memoirs, and helped direct the project to map the human genome, according to the AP report.
The Nobel laureate also selected bright young scientists and helped them. And he used his authority and connections to influence science policy.
The medal was sold at auction
A Bloomberg report said that in 2014, Watson said he would sell his Nobel Prize medallion because his controversial remarks made him an outcast in the scientific community.
Watson also said that he needed the money and that he would donate some of the proceeds to scientific research. The medal was sold at auction for $4.8 million.
“Because I was a ‘non-person’, I was fired from company boards, so I have no income other than academic income,” he said, according to Bloomberg, citing the Financial Times.
