50 Fun Facts About James Watson

With which two scientists did Watson share the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?

The citation was for the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer.

In which American city was Watson born in 1928?

He grew up on the South Side and went to public schools before entering the university at 15.

As a boy Watson appeared on which popular radio show for bright children?

He was already fascinated by birdwatching, a hobby shared with his father.

Which field did the young Watson originally consider majoring in?

Birdwatching was a hobby he shared with his father.

Reading which 1944 book in 1946 turned Watson from birds to genetics?

Schrodinger's little book pointed at a molecule that carried the genetic code.

At what age did Watson enter university on a tuition scholarship?

He credited the liberal admissions policy of university president Robert Hutchins.

Watson described the luckiest thing that ever happened to him as the fact that his father did what?

He called himself 'an escapee from the Catholic religion' and stopped attending mass at eleven.

Watson took his PhD in 1950 from a university in which state?

He had been drawn to Bloomington by the presence of the Nobel laureate Hermann Muller.

Who was Watson's doctoral advisor?

Luria later shared the 1969 Nobel Prize for the Luria-Delbruck experiment on mutations.

Watson's PhD research involved using X-rays to inactivate what?

He was part of the Phage Group, which studied the viruses that infect bacteria.

The 'Phage Group' Watson joined was led by Luria and which other geneticist?

Watson first met him in Luria's apartment in 1948 and again that summer at Cold Spring Harbor.

In 1949 the conventional view Watson was taught held that genes were made of what?

DNA was dismissed as a 'stupid tetranucleotide' with a merely structural role.

Watson spent his 1950-51 postdoctoral year in which European city?

He never clicked with the biochemist Herman Kalckar and worked instead with Ole Maaloe.

At a meeting in which country did Watson first hear Maurice Wilkins talk about X-ray data on DNA?

It convinced him that DNA had a definite structure that could be worked out.

Watson met Francis Crick at which Cambridge laboratory in 1951?

Luria arranged the postdoc through John Kendrew, whom he had met that summer.

Who first announced the double helix publicly, at a Solvay conference in Belgium on 8 April 1953?

The Cavendish director's announcement went unreported by the press.

Watson and Crick's paper appeared in Nature on which date in 1953?

It was titled 'Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid'.

Which future Nobel laureate drove from Oxford with Dorothy Hodgkin in April 1953 to see the DNA model?

The Oxford chemists went in two cars once Hodgkin announced they were off to see the model.

Rosalind Franklin told Watson and Crick that which part of DNA had to be on the outside of the molecule?

Their earlier models, like Pauling's, had the chains inside and the bases pointing out.

In 1954, Watson and Crick admitted their structure without Franklin's data would have been what?

In The Double Helix he later wrote that 'no one at King's realized they were in our hands'.

Franklin's later letters to Watson, found in the Cold Spring Harbor archives, opened with what greeting?

She consulted him on her tobacco mosaic virus RNA work and signed off 'Yours, Rosalind'.

From 1956 to 1976 Watson was on the biology faculty of which university?

His research there focused on RNA and its role in transferring genetic information.

In the 1960s Watson led 12 biologists demanding US forces withdraw from where?

In 1975 he also joined 2,000 scientists warning President Ford about nuclear proliferation.

Watson's first textbook, published in 1965, was Molecular Biology of the what?

It pioneered the use of brief declarative subheadings; Molecular Biology of the Cell came later.

What was Watson's original working title for the book that became The Double Helix?

The Modern Library later ranked it seventh among the 100 best nonfiction books.

Which publisher was originally to bring out The Double Helix before Watson's co-laureates objected?

The university dropped it and the book was published commercially in 1968.

Francis Crick described The Double Helix as a 'contemptible pack of' what?

He said it to Anne Sayre for her book Rosalind Franklin and DNA.

At Cold Spring Harbor Watson shifted the laboratory's research emphasis to the study of what?

Its scientists went on to make major contributions to the genetic basis of the disease.

Watson resigned from Cold Spring Harbor in 2007 after linking race genetically to what?

In 2019, after he repeated the views in a documentary, the laboratory revoked his honorary titles.

From 1990 to 1992 Watson headed which effort at the National Institutes of Health?

It finished mapping the human genome in 2003, under his successor Francis Collins.

Watson quit the NIH job after clashing with NIH director Bernadine Healy over what?

'The human genome belongs to the world's people, as opposed to its nations,' he had said.

Who took over as director of the genome effort after Watson left in 1992?

Watson later feuded with Venter, whom he was quoted as calling 'Hitler'.

In 2007 Watson became only the second person to publish his fully sequenced genome online. Who was first?

He said he wanted to encourage 'an era of personalized medicine'.

How much did Watson's Nobel medal fetch at Christie's in December 2014?

He was the first living laureate to auction his medal, complaining of being made an 'unperson'.

Which Russian billionaire bought Watson's Nobel medal and then returned it to him?

Part of the proceeds went to conservation on Long Island and research at Trinity College Dublin.

What was the title of Watson's 2007 memoir, in which he called colleagues 'dinosaurs' and 'deadbeats'?

Harvard Magazine called it an unlikely 'Book of Manners' for scientists.

Which fellow biologist once described Watson as 'the most unpleasant human being I had ever met'?

The two had competed for funding; Wilson later called the rivalry 'old history'.

Watson often spoke about his son Rufus in order to encourage research into which condition?

He married Elizabeth Lewis in 1968; their sons Rufus and Duncan were born in 1970 and 1972.

Watson wrote in Time that he had donated $1,000 to whose 2016 presidential campaign?

An atheist, he had signed the Humanist Manifesto with 21 other Nobel laureates in 2003.

Watson died in November 2025 at what age?

He had been moved to hospice care a week earlier after treatment for an infection.

Watson's maternal grandfather, a tailor, came from which city?

His maternal grandmother's parents came from County Tipperary in Ireland.

Which Nobel laureate's presence at Bloomington drew Watson there for graduate school in 1947?

Muller's papers of the 1920s and 30s had laid out the properties of the hereditary molecule that Schrodinger described.

Which of these was one of Watson's doctoral students who went on to a Nobel Prize?

Bob Horvitz, Peter Moore and Joan Steitz were also his PhD students; Sharp was a postdoc.

Watson's controversial 2014 Lancet paper argued that diabetes may stem from a lack of what?

Critics said the idea was neither new nor worthy and had been printed only because of his name.

Watson presented the double helix at a June 1953 symposium on what subject?

It came six weeks after the Nature paper; many present had not yet heard of the discovery.

With which two Danish scientists did Watson spend his 1950-51 postdoctoral year in Copenhagen?

From there he moved to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where he met Crick.

In which year was Watson appointed director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory?

He led it as director and president for about 35 years, then as chancellor and chancellor emeritus.

Which genome-sequencing rival did Watson reportedly liken to Hitler over his use of EST fragments?

Venter went on to found Celera Genomics and the feud rumbled on.

In 2007 Watson agreed to head the scientific council of which Portuguese philanthropic body?

He later advised the Allen Institute for Brain Science and a Chinese investment group.

In 2003 Watson was one of 22 Nobel laureates to sign which document?

An atheist, he died in East Northport, New York, in November 2025 at the age of 97.