Francis Crick was one of the key figures in creating modern molecular biology, leading to our understanding of the genetic code and modern forensic techniques like genetic fingerprinting.

Francis Crick was born in Northampton in 1916 and was educated at Northampton Grammar School. He studied physics at University College, London, graduating in 1937. After the Second World War he became a research student at the Medical Research Council, where he met James Watson in 1951.

Crick and Watson were both interested in the structure of nucleic acids. They built 'stick and ball' models to test their theories of how the atoms were arranged. The work of another scientist, Rosalind Franklin, eventually led to their discovery. Rosalind and Maurice Wilkins had been using x-ray diffraction to take pictures of DNA. It was her famous "photograph 51" that finally allowed Crick and Watson to 'see' the structure of DNA and build their now familiar model in 1953. Their joint proposal of the double-helix structure for DNA and the replication scheme explained what they had discovered.

Crick, Watson and Miller were awarded Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their ground breaking work. Unfortunately Rosalind Franklin died before these were awarded and, unlike the Victoria Cross, a Nobel Prize is not given posthumously. Francis Crick continued making his valuable contributions to science until his death on 28th July 2004.

Why not visit the Nobel Prize website to find out more.

This PowerPoint called DNA: the Instruction Manual for All Life explains more.