Francis Crick: Biography And Contributions Of This Physicist And Biochemist
Francis Crick was trained in different areas of science was a British physicist, molecular biologist and neuroscientist.
He is known for his important contribution to Molecular Biology, and in general to the field of science, for the discovery and approach of the model of the structure of the double helix of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule, a discovery made in collaboration with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, which helped them win and be recognized with the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physics in 1962.
He also made important contributions to the study and knowledge of consciousness and visual perception, proposing the frequency of transmission of images from the retina to the brain.
In this Francis Crick biography We will see the most relevant facts and events in the life of this scientist.
Francis Harry Compton Crick was born in Northampton in the United Kingdom on June 8, 1916 He was the eldest son of Harry Crick, who worked in a shoe factory, and Anne Elizabeth Wilkins. His family was religious, and as a child he attended the Congregationalist church, although when he turned 12 he told his mother that he preferred not to continue attending, since from an early age he was already interested in science, not showing affinity to any religion.
He was a student at Northampton Grammar School, and given his good grades after finishing school, at the age of 14, he received a scholarship that allowed him to study Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at Mill Hill School, a boarding school.
Finally He decided to study Physics but he was not accepted at the University of Cambridge, so he enrolled as a student at University College London, a public University, which welcomes students of any race, political or religious beliefs.
In 1937, at the age of 21, he graduated from the University and began conducting research for his doctorate , thesis that tried to measure the viscosity of water at high temperatures. He carried out the study and experiments in the laboratory of the physicist Adward Neville da Costa Andrade, although the development of his doctoral thesis would be affected by the outbreak of the Second World War, leaving the laboratory where he carried out his research destroyed by the explosion of a bomb.
During the period of World War II between 1939 and 1945 he worked as a military physicist for the British Royal Navy, with the purpose of creating magnetic and acoustic underwater mines that could not be detected by the German army.
The war would mark a before and after in Crick’s training and research , since he would not resume his doctorate in Physics, but this time he became interested in other branches of science such as Biology and Chemistry. So in 1947 he began to study Biology, given his previous training in Physics, he was able to be aware of its great achievements, it helped him to have a more open mind and a more positive and daring attitude regarding possible advances in the field of biology.
Consolidation of your professional life
In this way, Francis Crick delves into biological study and research, working for two years at the Cambridge Strangeways Laboratory, where investigated the properties and physical characteristics of the cytoplasm liquid with a gelatinous texture where the cell organelles are located.
He later moved to the Cavendish Laboratory, also in Cambridge, researching with the chemists Max Perutz and John Kendrew under the direction of Lawrence Bragg, a physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 for his contributions to X-ray crystallography, an experiment that has The purpose is the study and analysis of the materials.
The stage of his main contributions to genetics
The laboratory led by Bragg was competing for the discovery of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, with both the physicist and biophysicist John Randall who had not accepted Crick into his laboratory and with the chemist and biochemist Linus Pauling, the latter had pointed out the alpha-helix structure of proteins.
Likewise, in 1951 Francis Crick began to dedicate all his time and effort to the study of the structure of the DNA molecule, considered very important in the transmission of hereditary information of cells, together with the biochemist James Dewey Watson and the biophysicist Maurice Wilkins who had obtained images of large molecules using the X-ray crystallography technique.
Thus, after two years, on April 25, 1953, Crick and Watson published their discovery of the three-dimensional helical structure of DNA using the analyzes of genetic competences carried out with the X-ray crystallography technique made by the chemist Rosalind Franklin and the knowledge that Crick had in Biology and Watson in crystallography.
Thus, in 1962, Francis Crick received, along with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for their important discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. Unfortunately Rosalind Franklin, who we have already seen that she also contributed with her contributions in genetic crystallography, was not able to receive the award since she had died 4 years earlier at the age of 37 due to ovarian cancer.
So that A model was proposed where reference was made to both the physical and chemical properties of deoxyribonucleic acid , which is made up of 4 nitrogenous bases called adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. The three-dimensional structure of DNA is in the shape of a double helix made up of pairs of nitrogenous bases: adenine joins with thiamine and cytosine with guanine. In this way, a genetic code is created that allows each person to be identified and differentiated.
In the same way, The double helix structure allows DNA to be copied and thus generate other chains of nucleic acids, DNA and RNA Starting from this discovery, it is then that the Crick and Watson duo focuses on research into the encryption of the deoxyribonucleic acid molecule, a study that will last until 1966.
Outside the scope of research, in 1963 the Order of the British Empire offered him the recognition of being knighted, but in this case Francis did not accept and rejected the proposal.
Given the great relevance of his discovery, also In 1972 he received the Royal Medal awarded annually by the Royal Society of London to scientists who have made important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge.
His passage to the United States
In 1973, already in the United States, he began working at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies name given to a complex of laboratories, considered world leaders in the world of biology, located at the University of San Diego in the State of California.
It is in this period when focuses on neuroscience specifically in the study and research of the brain, making important contributions to the knowledge of consciousness and the transmission of images of the retina of the brain, a function of visual perception.
Three years later, in 1976, he began his work as a professor at the University of San Diego. In 1995 his health weakened a fact that led him to decide to leave his position as president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
F. Crick also published different works: Of Molecules and Men in 1967, where he refers to the molecular biological revolution that was being experienced at that time; Life ItSelf in 1981, where he raises the nature of life from a scientific perspective; What mad pursuit: A personal View of scientific Discovery in 1988, where he talks about the work carried out on the proposed structure of DNA and the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology and finally The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul in 1994, where presents consciousness as its central theme.
Last years and death
Notably In 1991 the Queen of England awarded him the Order of Merit of the United Kingdom for his services to the field of science.
Finally, Francis Crick died on July 28, 2004 at the Thornton Hospital of the University of San Diego, California, at the age of 88 due to colon cancer.
