DNA Gallery

Watson and Crick with their DNA model

COMMERCIAL USE REQUIRES CLEARANCE. The discoverers of the structure of DNA. James Watson (b.1928) at left and Francis Crick (1916-2004), with their model of part of a DNA molecule in 1953. Crick & Watson met at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, in 1951. Their work on the structure of DNA was performed with a knowledge of Chargaff's ratios of the bases in DNA and some access to the X-ray crystallography of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College London. Combining all of this work led to the deduction that DNA exists as a double helix. Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, Franklin having died of cancer in 1958. Photographed in the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, in May 1953

© A. BARRINGTON BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

DNA Double Helix with Autoradiograph

Conceptual computer illustration of the DNA double helix together with a graphic representation of an autoradiograph display. The pattern of the DNA autoradiograph bands is unique to each individual, but some bands are shared by related people, such as a parent & child. DNA fingerprints can be used to prove conclusively whether people are related. The double-helix model of DNA structure was first published in the journal Nature by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, based upon the crucial X-ray diffraction image of DNA labeled as "Photo 51", from Rosalind Franklin in 1952. The structure of a double-helix elucidated the mechanism of base pairing by which genetic information is stored and copied in living organisms. Genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling was developed by Dr. Alec Jeffreys and his team in 1985

© DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Viruses and DNA, illustration

Conceptual image for interaction between viruses and host-cell DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Integration of viruses into DNA is the key step in oncogenesis. Several viruses, such as hepatitis B virus, papillomavirus and other, can integrate into host DNA as insertional mutagens causing the activation of a cellular proto-oncogene which eventually leads to uncontrolled cell multiplication and cancer development

© Science Photo Library