By Amy Dockser Marcus and Robert Lee Hotz

James Watson, the scientist who became famous for helping discover the structure of DNA in 1953 and notorious decades later for suggesting that Black people are intellectually inferior to whites, has died at age 97, according to a news release from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Watson was 25 when he and English biophysicist Francis Crick figured out the double helix structure of DNA that encodes the essential information for life. The two shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with colleague Maurice Wilkins.

The discovery made Watson one of the most influential figures in modern science. His later comments confounded colleagues and supporters. They called Watson's remarks a misuse of the very science that propelled his career.

"DNA made him who he was," said Nathaniel Comfort, a professor of the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University who is writing a biography of Watson, "and it undid him in the end."

Young prodigy

Watson, born and raised in Chicago, was a public-school prodigy. He entered the University of Chicago on scholarship at 15. He earned a Ph.D. in zoology at Indiana University when he was 22, made his Nobel-winning discovery at 25 with Crick as a postdoctoral researcher at the U.K.'s Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, and won the Nobel at 34.

After two years of failed attempts, Watson and Crick made their conceptual breakthrough on Feb. 28, 1953. Aided by information from unpublished X-ray diffraction images made by a colleague, Rosalind Franklin, they concluded that the DNA molecule was arranged in two intertwined strands of chemical-base pairs, resembling a spiral staircase. By their analysis of its physical and chemical behavior, the double-stranded molecule could produce exact copies of itself and carry genetic instructions.

As Watson recalled, the two men rushed to their favorite pub, where Crick declared to the lunchtime crowd that they had "found the secret of life."

Watson joined Harvard University's biology department in 1956. He wrote a textbook, "Molecular Biology of the Gene," whose clear prose and easy-to-follow organization not only helped establish the field but also a new style of science writing. He wrote two other influential textbooks, "Molecular Biology of the Cell" and "Recombinant DNA" and three volumes describing his life in science.

Dawn of a revolution

The young scientists who jockeyed to study with Watson shared his belief that they were working at the dawn of a revolution that would transform biology. They weren't wrong.

Discovering the structure of DNA laid the foundation of genetic engineering. It gave scientists a way to probe the biochemical fundamentals of cancer and hereditary disease. It enabled new medicines for diabetes, hepatitis B and other ailments.

And it paved the way for engineered crops that are resistant to pests, tools for exploring evolution and exotic forms of biological computing, all based on manipulations of the simple but powerful DNA code.

Robert Kamen, who got his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology at Watson's Harvard lab, recalled looking up to find the Nobel laureate staring down on him one evening around 11 p.m.

"If you tried to make small talk, he would walk away," Kamen said. "What he wanted to hear is 'Eureka!' " If Watson thought a scientist had an important find, he would take a seat and say, "I got invited to give a talk. You should do it instead," and then walk away, Kamen said.

Nancy Hopkins worked in the Watson lab as a college student after hearing him give a lecture about DNA -- an experience that she likened to "a religious conversion." Being introduced by Watson to his pack of Nobel-decorated friends, she said, was like meeting the Beatles of science. She said Watson opened the door for her and other women to pursue careers in science.

Watson instituted 4 p.m. tea, a holdover from his time in England and a ritual that allowed the scientists to gather every afternoon for refreshments, lab talk and gossip. He had a knack for identifying the most crucial questions in the field and urging students to pursue them.

Watson also regaled them with tales of his time with Crick in England. Some of the anecdotes made their way into his candid 1968 memoir, "The Double Helix," which sold more than a million copies.

The book contained sexist remarks about his colleague Franklin's appearance and temperament. "There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of 31 her dresses showed all the imagination of English bluestocking adolescents," he wrote.

Watson tried to reverse the remarks in the book's epilogue. His early impressions of Franklin, he wrote, "were often wrong." Over the years, science historians have paid greater attention to Franklin's role in the discovery of DNA's structure.

Bad boy

The memoir helped establish Watson's reputation as the bad boy of biology. He played up the persona himself, especially when raising funds for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, on Long Island, N.Y., where he took over as director in 1968. Former colleagues recounted how before entering the home of one wealthy potential donor, Watson untied his shoes and mussed his hair.

He built Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory into one of the world's leading centers of molecular biology. In 1988, he also founded its DNA Learning Center, a division of the lab that trained high-school students and reflected Watson's efforts to promote DNA in popular culture.

From 1988 to 1992, he was the first director of the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health, where he helped start the ambitious and controversial effort to decipher all three billion letters of human DNA. Concerned about harms that might arise from such research, he set aside part of the project's budget for studies of social, ethical and legal consequences.

Watson was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1997. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. For a generation, rarely a year passed when a major university somewhere in the world didn't award him an honorary degree.

Then in 2007, when he was slated to tour the U.K. to promote his latest memoir, he was quoted in the Times of London alleging racial differences in intelligence between white and Black people. He told the reporter he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" since "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas testing says not really."

His remarks ignited a firestorm. The board of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory stripped him of his title as chancellor. He apologized "unreservedly" for remarks that he called stupid and without scientific basis.

He auctioned off his gold Nobel medal at Christie's in 2014, along with handwritten notes for his acceptance speech at the 1962 Nobel Prize banquet ceremony in Stockholm and drafts of his Nobel Lecture. Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov paid $4.1 million for the medal, then returned it to Watson.

In a 2019 PBS documentary "American Masters: Decoding Watson," he was asked if his views had changed on genetic differences in intelligence among racial groups. Watson said they hadn't. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory then revoked his honorary titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R. Grace Professor Emeritus, and honorary trustee.

"He had the great instinct to go after DNA," said Hopkins, the molecular biologist and his former student. "He couldn't give up on the idea that everything can be explained by a gene. He got trapped."

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 07, 2025 15:00 ET (20:00 GMT)

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