发现“生命的秘密”

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1916年6月8日，弗朗西斯·克里克出生了；38年后，他和同事詹姆斯·沃森一起发现了DNA的结构。

Francis Crick (1916–2004)

the man who helped to discover

the structure of DNA

The following year, in 1950, I began doing research for a PhD with Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. But in 1951, I met a young man who was going to change my life. He was an American science student called James Watson who joined the MRC project, and came to share my office. I was 35, and James was only 23, but in spite of the 12 year difference in our ages, we became good friends and colleagues.

Both of us were very interested in DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and we shared a passion, a very strong interest, for finding out more about it. We spent many hours discussing our ideas about DNA, and more than anything, we wanted to find out its structure. Although we knew that genetic information was stored in DNA, we wanted to find out how.

DNA is a chemical which is essential to life, and is present in every cell of the body. It's like a genetic ‘blueprint’ of the body – it carries all the information about how a living creature looks and behaves. We knew we weren't the only scientists doing research into DNA. Two other MRC biochemists, scientists who study chemical processes in living things, were also working on it. Their names were Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, and they'd already found out a lot of information at their laboratory in King's College, London. Rosalind Franklin had also taken some important photographs. So James and I were very lucky, because we were able to use the data that Rosalind and Maurice had already collected.

James and I continued working for many months, then one morning in February 1953, we had an amazing breakthrough, a great moment when we achieved our goal. We finally succeeded in discovering the structure of DNA. We were very happy and excited, because we knew that our discovery was of huge importance to science. Many things in the world were going to change because of it. So at lunchtime, we went out to a pub in Cambridge to celebrate. This pub was called The Eagle, and it was near the Cavendish Laboratory, where we worked. The Eagle was popular with scientists from the Cavendish, and they often went there to relax over lunch, and discuss their ideas.

On 28th February 1953, James and I walked into The Eagle for lunch as usual. But then I did something which was very strange. I announced in a loud voice that we'd found ‘the secret of life’. All the other customers stopped eating and looked at me in great surprise, but it was true! We really had found the secret of life!

We'd discovered exactly how DNA stores genetic information and how it replicates itself – in other words, how DNA makes copies of itself. We'd answered the question, ‘How do living things reproduce themselves?’ We'd found the key to a whole new world of science, and opened the door to a new understanding of genetics.

以上内容摘自《了不起的科学家》，题图来自visualhunt.com。

“柯林斯名人故事集第四级”正文部分用简明清晰的英文讲述人物生平故事，并以脚注形式提供重点词汇解释，文后附该著名人物生平大事记。

书后附英文词汇表，提供重点词汇的英语释义。全书英文原音朗读，提供点读和二维码音频播放功能。

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