February 28: The Day Scientists Discovered the Double Helix

On a Saturday morning in 1953 Watson and Crick deduced the structure of DNA, thereby uncovering "the secret of life"

By Howard Markel and PBS News

Medical historian Dr. Howard Markel revisits moments that changed the course of modern medicine. The place: The Eagle, a genial pub and favorite luncheon spot for the staff, students and researchers working at the University of Cambridge's old Cavendish laboratory on nearby Free School Lane. The date: Feb. 28, 1953, a day when real, honest-to-goodness history was made. The time: 12 noon.Two men entered the noisy pub to create even more noise.

The first was a tall, gangly, 25-year-old American bacteriologist with uncombed hair named James Watson. The second, Francis Crick, was a 37-year-old British physicist who, according to one of his scientific rivals, looked like "a bookmaker's rout.

"With booming voices and youthful bravado, the odd duo bragged that they, in the words of Francis Crick -- or at least in the memory of James Watson recalling the words of Francis Crick -- "We have discovered the secret of life."Indeed, they had. That very morning, the two men worked out the double helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, better known to every first-grader as DNA.

Mind you, they did not discover DNA. That scientific feat was actually accomplished in 1869 by Friedrich Miescher, a physiological chemist working in Basel, Switzerland. Miescher determined that DNA, a nucleic acid found in the cell's nucleus, was comprised of sugar, phosphoric acid, and several nitrogen containing bases. But for decades, no one quite knew much about its precise function.

Happy 60th Anniversary DNA! Genentech employees celebrating the anniversary of the discovery of DNA by forming a human DNA strand. Over 2,600 participated!