James Watson, American Molecular Biologist
James Dewey Watson (1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Watson's textbook, The Molecular Biology of the Gene, set a new standard for textbooks, particularly through the use of concept heads, brief declarative subheadings. Its style has been emulated by almost all successive textbooks. In 1990, Watson was appointed the Head of the Human Genome Project, but left in 1992 after conflicts with the NIH Director, Bernadine Healy. Watson was opposed to Healy's attempts to acquire patents on gene sequences, and any ownership of the laws of nature. In 2007, he published his fully sequenced genome online
