Crick, Francis Harry Compton 
1916 - .
English molecular biologist. 


From 1949 he researched the molecular structure of DNA, and the means whereby characteristics are transmitted from one generation to another. For this work he was awarded a Nobel prize (with Maurice Wilkins and James Watson) 1962. Using Wilkins's and others' discoveries, Crick and Watson postulated that DNA consists of a double helix consisting of two parallel chains of alternate sugar and phosphate groups linked by pairs of organic bases. They built molecular models which also explained how genetic information could be coded - in the sequence of organic bases. Crick and Watson published their work on the proposed structure of DNA in 1953. Their model is now generally accepted as correct. Crick was born in Northampton and studied physics at University College, London. During World War II he worked on the development of radar. He then went to do biological research at Cambridge. In 1977 he became a professor at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California. Later Crick, this time working with South African Sydney Brenner, demonstrated that each group of three adjacent bases (he called a set of three bases a codon) on a single DNA strand codes for one specific amino acid. He also helped to determine codons that code for each of the 20 main amino acids. Furthermore, he formulated the adaptor hypothesis, according to which adaptor molecules mediate between messenger RNA and amino acids. These adaptor molecules are now known as transfer RNAs.