WATSON & CRICK - THE DISCOVERY OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA 1953 - Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids. A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid. Offprint from: Nature, vol. 171.

WATSON, JAMES DEWEY (b.1928) - CRICK, FRANCIS HARRY COMPTON (1916-2004). Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids. A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid. Offprint from: Nature, vol. 171. [London: Fisher, Knight & Co. Ltd., for Macmillan & Co., 25 April 1953.]

Octavo (210 x 140 mm). Printed in a single column on 6 conjugate leaves and one half-leaf 7, 4 photographic illustrations and two diagrams including the double helix. Stapled as issued.
Self wrapper, stapled with the last leaf tipped at left edge onto preceding page as issued. Signature of professor Hans G. Boman on the first page. Slight pen-stroke on first page in red. Lower corner with slight creases. Otherwise fine condition.

The first announcement of the discovery of the structure of DNA. and the single most important work in the history of the life sciences. This discovery explained how heredity messages could be encoded in a crystalline structure that was stable and yet allowed for both replication and mutation.
Comprising: "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" by Watson and Crick, "Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids" by Maurice Wilkins, Alec Stokes and Herbert Wilson, and "Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate" by Rosalind Franklin and Ray Gosling.

Provenance: Hans G. Boman (1924-2008), Swedish microbiologist and a pioneer in peptide-mediated innate immune defence.

Haskell f. Norman a.o., One hundred books famous in medicine, 99; Garrison & Morton 256.3
With its memorable opening: "We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxrybose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest," it correctly interpreted the structure of DNA as a double helix.

In concluding their paper, Watson & Crick wrote: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have potulated immediately suggest a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." This has been called perhaps the greatest understatement in the history of scinece. In 1962, Watson and Crick and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of the nucleic acids.

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