This digitised material is free to access, but contains information or visuals that may:<ul><li>include personal details of living individuals</li><li>be upsetting or distressing</li><li>be explicit or graphic</li><li>include objects and images of objects decontextualised in a way that is offensive to the originating culture.</li></ul>By viewing this material, we ask that you use the content lawfully, ethically and responsibly under the conditions set out in our <a href="https://wellcomecollection.cdn.prismic.io/wellcomecollection/d4817da5-c71a-4151-81c4-83e39ad4f5b3_Wellcome+Collection_Access+Policy_Aug+2020.pdf">Access Policy</a>.

You must accept the terms to view the content.

Correspondence between Pontecorvo and Professor Charles A Thomas Junior discussing Linus Carl Pauling's ideas on proposed models of DNA

item

Galleries and Reading Room

Library

Shop

Café

The bundle includes earlier correspondence between Pontecorvo and Linus Carl Pauling (who got in touch with Pontecorvo after reading his Leeuwenhoek Lecture) and reprints of his papers and lectures on self duplication of genes, and his theories on the formation of antibodies, including a copy of his 1948 Sir Jesse Boot Foundation Lecture delivered on 28 May 1948. In this lecture he gave a number of proposed models for DNA, very similar to the B form of Watson and Crick.Thomas was keen to find references to Pauling's ideas for a paper he was working on which led to Pontecorvo thinking about whether Pauling could be "entitled to priority for what everybody calls the Watson-Crick independent idea that the template is itself a duplex structure which replicates by double complement formation". Pontecorvo thought that Pauling initially had this idea but "forgot about it or thought differently after having published it". The copy of his letter to Thomas outlines his thoughts on the matter.

Content advisory

Correspondence between Pontecorvo and Professor Charles A Thomas Junior discussing Linus Carl Pauling's ideas on proposed models of DNA

Licence and re-use