Francis Crick

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Francis Harry Compton Crick (18 June 1916 – July 28, 2004) was a British molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist.

He co-authored the academic paper recommending the DNA molecule's double helix structure in 1953.

"For his findings regarding nucleic acids' molecular structure and their implications for living tissue exchange," Watson and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.

The findings were partly based on fundamental studies conducted by Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling, and Wilkins. Crick was a pioneering molecular biologist who played a key role in the discovery of DNA's helical structure.

He is best known for his use of the term "central dogma" to express the fact that once information is transferred from nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) to proteins, it cannot flow back to nucleic acids.

In other words, the last step in the chain of chemical information transfer from nucleic acids to proteins is irreversible. Kieckhefer is a Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.

His later studies focused on theoretical neurobiology and attempts to advance the scientific study of human consciousness.

According to Christof Koch, he stayed in this position until his death; "he was editing a book on his deathbed, a scientist until the bitter end."

Early life and education

Crick was the first son of Harry Crick (1887-1948) and Annie Elizabeth Crick (née Wilkins), 1879-1955). He was born on June 8, 1916 and grew in Weston Favell, then a small village near Northampton, England, in which Crick's father and uncle operated the family's boot and shoe factory. Walter Drawbridge Crick (1857-1903), an amateur naturalist, compiled a report of local foraminifera (single-celled protists with shells), collaborated with Charles Darwin and had two gastropods (snails or slugs) named after him.

Francis was attracted to science and wondered what he could learn about it from books at an early age. He was taken to church by his parents as an infant. But by the time 12 years old, he said he didn't want to go any more because he preferred a scientific search for answers over religious conviction.

Walter Crick, his uncle, lived in a tiny house on the south side of Abington Avenue; he had a shed at the bottom of his little garden, where he taught Crick to blow glass, do chemical experiments, and make photographic prints. On the Billing Road, when he was eight or nine years old, he switched to the most junior form of the Northampton Grammar School. By Park Avenue South and Abington Park Crescent, he was about 1.25 miles (2 km) from his house so he could walk there and back, but later, he'd more often went by bus or bicycle. The teaching in the higher grades was beneficial, but not as stimulating. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry with his closest friend John Shilston at the age of 14. On Mill Hill School's Foundation Day, Mr. Turner awarded the Walter Knox Prize for Chemistry. He said that his success was based on the quality of teaching he received as a pupil at Mill Hill.

Crick studied at University College London (UCL), a University of London constituent college, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of London in 1937. Crick began a PhD at UCL but World War II interrupted it. He later joined Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as a PhD student and Honorary Fellow, and spent most of his time at the Cavendish Laboratory and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He served as an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and of University College, London.

Crick initiated a PhD research project on measuring the viscosity of water at high temperatures (which he later described as "the hardest problem imaginable") in the laboratory of physicist Edward Neville da Costa Andrade at University College London, but Crick was prevented from a career in physics due to World War II's outbreak (in particular, an explosion during the Battle of Britain where a bomb fell through the roof of the laboratory and destroyed his experimental equipment). He was given the Carey Foster Research Award in his second year as a PhD student, which was a great honour. He did postdoctoral work at the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute.

He worked at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, from which many prominent scientists emerged, including David Bates, Robert Boyd, George Deacon, John Gunn, Harrie Massey, and Nevill Mott, were involved in the development of a new mine that was effective against German minesweepers during WWII; during World War II.

Post-World War II life and work

Crick, who was 31 years old at the time, began researching biology and became a part of a major shift toward biology research in 1947. Migrant Migration was made possible by the resurgent influence of physicists such as Sir John Randall, who had fought the war with inventions such as radar. Crick had to change from the "elegance and deep simplicity" of physics to the "elaborate chemical mechanisms that natural selection had evolved over billions of years. "Much as if one had to be born again" during the change, he said. According to Crick, the experience of learning physics taught him something important: hubris—and the knowledge that physics was already a success, exciting advances could also be made in other fields such as biology. Crick's optimism inspired him to be more adventurous than conventional biologists who tended to be concerned about the difficult challenges of biology rather than the earlier achievements of physics.

Crick worked on the physical properties of cytoplasm at Cambridge's Strangeways Research Laboratory, led by Honor Bridget Fell, before joining Max Perutz and John Kendrew at the Cavendish Laboratory for the better part of two years. The Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge was under the general direction of Sir Lawrence Bragg, who had won the Nobel Prize in 1915 at the age of 25. Bragg was instrumental in the quest to bring DNA's structure to the surface (after being praised at the post by Pauling's success in determining the alpha helix structure of proteins). At the same time, Bragg's Cavendish Laboratory was also competing with King's College London, whose Biophysics Department was also under the direction of Randall. (Randall had declined Crick's offer to work at King's College.) Crick and Maurice Wilkins of King's College were personal acquaintances who influenced subsequent scientific events as well as James Watson's close friendship. Crick and Wilkins were first seen at King's College, not at the Admiralty during World War II as erroneously recorded by two authors.

Personal life

Crick married twice, fathered three children, and was the grandfather of six grandchildren; his brother Anthony (born in 1918) predeceased him in 1966.

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Crick died of colon cancer on the morning of 28 July 2004 at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Thornton Hospital in La Jolla; he was cremated and his remains were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. On September 27, 2004, a public memorial service was held at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; guest speakers included James Watson, Sydney Brenner, Aaron Klug, Seymour Benzer, Mohammed Klug, Christof Koch, Patrick Klug, Kevin Klug, Vilayanur Ramachnowski, Michael Crick, Terry Sejnowski, his son Michael Crick, and his younger daughter Jacqueline Nichols; Jeymour Benzer, John On August 3, 2004, there was a private memorial for family and colleagues.

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