Newsweek (Nobel Prize)

Date:
1962
Reference:
PP/CRI/I/2/1
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: <i>Newsweek</i> (Nobel Prize). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MEDICINE Biology's 'Rosetta Stone' In Cambridge, Mass., one day last week, Prof. James Dewey Watson was greeted with cheers when he walked into his 9 o'clock class in Harvard's biol ogy building. On the blackboard a stu dent had written: Dr. Watson has just won the Nobel Prize. In Cambridge, England, Dr. Francis H.C. Crick had re ceived similar news a few hours before, and filled his bathtub with ice and bot tles of champagne for his university col leagues. In a New . York hotel, Dr. Maurice H.F. Wilkins was interrupted at breakfast by a transatlantic call from a Swedish newspaperman who informed the lanky Britisher that he too would share in the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medi cine and Physiology. The award, which this year carries a $49,656 cash stipend, came as no sur prise to anyone, including the winners. Indeed, many biologists were inclined to regard the award as nearly a decade overdue. Drs. Watson, Crick, and Wil kins, by providing the first physical de scription of the chemical that makes up the genes, had achieved the greatest genetic advance since Mendel. Their work, said Rockefeller Institute geneti cist Dr. Alfred E. Mirsky last week, is a step toward biology's Rosetta stone. Their achievement has led biologists on one of the most exciting chases since the splitting of the atom, one which may ultimately unravel the last secrets of the living cell. The Mastermind: The secrets, as scientists have known for twenty years, are locked in a mixture of sugars, phos phates, and acids called deoxyribonu cleic acid, or DNA. As the stuff of which genes are made, DNA, found in the cell's chromosomes, makes lions roar, viruses deadly, and dictates the color of human.eyes and hair. After the union of sperm and egg, DNA transmits roughly 1 million chemical instructions for the manufacture of a human being. Drs. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins have Crick: Champagne in the tub put science on the brink of knowing how. The first step toward finding out how DNA was built was taken by Dr. Wilkins •in 1951. Bouncing X rays off DNA mole cules (which are invisible to the most powerful microscopes) onto film, the blond physicist obtained the first, some what hazy inkling of their shape: A spiral. Then Dr. Crick, a physicist at the Brit ish Medical Research Council's Molecu lar Biology laboratory, and Dr. Watson, then a 22-year-old post-doctoral fellow in biology from the University of Indiana, constructed a model of the mysterious DNA molecule out of wire and colored beads. The result, confirmed by Dr. Wil kins after further X-ray studies and de scribed in the journal Nature in 1953, was an electrifying glimpse at life's rec ipe and a guidepost for future research. Wilkins: Life's code in a spiral According to the Watson-Crick model, DNA was constructed like a twisted rope ladder, with sugar and phosphate chains forming the sides, and four dis tinct nucleic acids as the rungs. The two scientists suggested that all these sepa rate units comprised a simple alphabet for the complex genetic code. The exact sequences of the four nucleic acids, ca pable of almost infinite combinations, de termined the character of each daughter cell—that of lion or lamb, black hair or brown, muscle or nerve. How does DNA pass on its secrets to succeeding generations? Just before the DNA in the cell's nucleus divides, Drs. Watson and Crick reasoned, the spiral strands unwind, then split down the mid dle. Each half separates and forms the hereditary material of the prospective daughter cells. Each separate strand in Watson : A cold in the head each new cell becomes the pattern for formation of a new half. The DNA strands, one old, the other new, inter twine and complete the nuclear picture for the two new cells. The Code-Breakers: Now, scientists around the world are trying to read the arrangements of sugars, phosphates, and acids, and break the code. With na ture's cipher book in hand, it may be possible to alter genetic material by add ing chemicals at appropriate points in the DNA molecule—in effect taking con trol of reproduction. Doctors armed with the code might be able to prevent dis eases—such as some forms of mental re tardation and anemia—that occur when DNA's genetic instructions err. Cancer, which represents a malfunction of cell division, may likewise be eliminated by genetic drug control. All three of last week's new Nobelists are hard at work attempting to unravel the genetic code. Soft-spoken, New Zea land-born Dr. Wilkins said: It will cer tainly be several years before the final solution. At a press conference at Har vard, Dr. Watson quipped, with a char acteristic mixture of frankness and dry humor: It is an important thing we have accomplished, but we have not done away with the common cold—which I now have. Cancer and MF-10 After years of intensive worldwide re search, cancer has yielded few of its secrets, but it has generated many theo ries about its origin and control. Among the most intriguing is the idea that posits the existence of a biologic mechanism that could prevent cells from growing wild. New evidence supporting this con cept was offered last week by Dr. Ed ward D. McLaughlin of Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College. In a cautious report at the 48th clinical congress of the American College of Sur geons in Atlantic City, the 31-year-old investigator said he had isolated a sub- stance—called MF-10—from human blood 41 October 29, 1962