Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution [Hardcover]

Victor K. Mcelheny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2003

From the discovery of the double helix to the imminent sequencing of the human genome, James Watson has been at dead center in this great biological revolution. Since the very morning after his Nobel Prize-winning discovery, he has continued to ride the scientific supernova that he and his collaborator, Francis Crick, detonated in 1953. Targeting the big questions, mobilizing the best talent, writing the textbook that defined molecular biology, energizing the "war on cancer," he has served as a prime mover of the DNA era.Now, a distinguished science reporter who has known him for decades and worked for him for four years, with unique access to the scientists who know Watson best, has written an unauthorized, non-reverential account of this extraordinary man. While Watson is probably the most influential scientist in the last half-century, he is also one of the most controversial. From the ruthless competition in the race to identify the structure of DNA, to clashes with ethicists over charged issues in genetics, to a chorus of Bronx cheers for his recent memoir, Watson has left a wake of detractors as well as fans. Until now, Watson has managed to keep control over his legend, fending off aspiring biographers with his own memoirs. Victor McElheny gets behind this invented persona, bringing us close to the relentless genius who triggered and sustained a revolution in science that affects us all.A Merloyd Lawrence Book

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you have ever had the notion that science is dull business, this book will change your mind. Hardly your stereotypical scientist in a white lab coat, James Watson in his prime was fiercely competitive, brash, and irreverent, and caused controversy wherever he went, simultaneously inspiring and exasperating his colleagues. His arrogance, lack of tact, and love of gossip were only overshadowed by his passion, drive, and genius, allowing him to attract the most brilliant thinkers (and generous funding) to his projects. On the cutting edge of molecular biology since the mid1950s, Watson, along with collaborator Francis Crick, won the Nobel Prize in 1962 for discovering the double-helix structure of DNA. In 1965 he wrote Molecular Biology of the Gene, his textbook on molecular biology, followed by his controversial and entertaining The Double Helix in 1968. An "intellectual manager" on a grand scale, he built Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory into one of the great biological centers of the world and was chosen in 1988 by the National Academy of Sciences to be the first director of the Human Genome Project.

Since Watson chose not to cooperate with Victor McElheny, neither he nor his family were interviewed for the book, but this does not detract from the work, since the author focuses strictly on Watson's professional life anyway. And McElheny is certainly qualified to do so: not only did he work with Watson for four years, he has also been a science reporter for over four decades. He bases his book on personal observations and on extensive interviews with nearly 50 scientists who have worked closely with Watson. McElheny details the past half-century of breakthroughs with considerable color and a wealth of revealing anecdotes. A self-declared optimist most interested in using science to "improve human life," Watson placed himself on the frontlines of the war on cancer in order to make the largest possible impact. In doing so, writes McElheny, he "may have influenced the thinking of biologists more than any other scientist during this half-century." A fascinating portrait of a remarkable man. --Shawn Carkonen

From Publishers Weekly

James Watson's The Double Helix, an account of his discovery with Francis Crick of the structure of DNA, is one of the bestselling scientific memoirs of all time. Science journalist McElheny, author of a biography of photography pioneer Edwin Land (Insisting on the Impossible), fills in the details of Watson's early career, before his Nobel Prize- winning discovery, and tracks his many achievements over the following half-century. Watson's work as an administrator, most notably of the Cold Spring Harbor labs on Long Island, and as a mentor to young scientists, has been as important as his own scientific work. Not one to rest on his laurels, Watson moved on from studying the structure of DNA to investigate recombinant DNA and the genetic causes of cancer. Most recently, he led the Human Genome Project, until political pressures forced his resignation. McElheny manages to convey Watson's complex personality: confident to the point of arrogance and infamous for alienating coworkers, Watson knew the impact of the "mad scientist" look on politicians and wealthy donors: more than one observer described him mussing up his hair and untying his tennis shoes before going in to give a presentation. However, readers interested in Watson's private life (he didn't marry until he was nearly 40) or psychobiography will have to look elsewhere. McElheny worked under Watson for a time and comes perilously close to hagiography. Those who work in the sciences or who knew Watson will find this biography informative, but the general science buff will probably find it less satisfying than going back and rereading The Double Helix. Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; export ed edition (January 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738203416
• ISBN-13: 978-0738203416
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,588,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars People and molecular biology, a great combination, September 1, 2003

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution (Hardcover)

Victor K. McElheny, the author of WATSON AND DNA, worked under Watson at Cold Spring Harbor on the north shore of Long Island, New York, as director of Banbury Center from 1978 to 1982, organizing conferences on environmental sources of cancer. This did not attract much money. Support from the National Cancer Institute "took the form of book purchases." (p. 175). Industry had to provide funding when deficits became severe, but Watson was willing to provide credit for others when money came in. "Watson said that a conference on patenting life forms that I staged in 1981 had opened the way to the $7.5 million research cooperation between CSHL and Exxon." (p. 176). There is a site map of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on page 173, and I needed to page through the book to find it, since there is no list of illustrations. Page 58 showing DNA DOUBLE HELIX and FOUR BASES AS BASE PAIRS OF DNA is a schematic from MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF THE CELL by Bruce Alberts et al. An X-ray image of DNA made by Rosalind Franklin in May 1952 is shown on the third page of photographs following page 178.

The twentieth century produced some individual thinkers, and in scientific research those who were determined to be the first to provide an answer were seen by experts who had patiently acquired their knowledge as aspiring upstarts. Anyone who could help them was likely to be like Erwin Chargaff, when Francis Crick "forgot which base was which. He did not know which bases had NH[subscript]2, amino groups. You could always look these up in a book! Chargaff drew the formulas for the two smart alecks. They were so ignorant. He recalled, `I never met two men who knew so little and aspired to so much.' They talked a lot about the `pitch' of the bases with respect to the long axis of DNA. After the humiliating interview, Chargaff jotted a note: `two pitchmen in search of a helix.' He was not in a hurry to find the DNA structure. Watson and Crick's ambition, and their worry about Pauling's beating them to the structure, left Chargaff cold." (p. 48).

One of the keys to the structure was that "It possessed a type of symmetry called `monoclinic C2,' which specified that the two helical chains ran in opposite directions. . . . In ten turns, then, the rung-like pairs of bases would be repeated, implying a rotation of 36 degrees from one base pair to the next." (p. 55). It took a long time to get the proper form of molecules for the basic structure, with NH[subscript]2 instead of NH groups. Watson was working with "enol" forms instead of "keto" until the fourth week of February, 1953, when Jerry Donahue convinced Watson which shapes were basic. "The particular tautomeric form governed which hydrogen bonds could form between bases. With enol, it wouldn't work. With keto it would. Donohue's intervention was vital." (p. 56).

The number of people working in molecular biology has increased so much since the basic elements of the field were figured out in this fashion that readers of this book are unlikely to achieve the fame acquired by many of the people this book describes. Few will have the opportunity to go "to Fort Detrick, Maryland, the heavily guarded enclave where the military tried to make biological weapons out of deadly pathogens, and soon found that, as Watson said, `there was nothing good to tell the President.' The pathogens were useless in a superpower conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, each with thousands of nuclear warheads." (p. 216). Ultimately, "Said Watson, `You can't imagine them banning anything they thought would work.' " (p. 217). This book does not reach the point of trying to find WMD so we can ban them all over again, in places we sold them to after "Watson's Harvard colleague Matthew Meselson helped convince President Nixon to stop the work and destroy supplies." (p. 217).

Consider this book an investment in our future that will cost you much less than Exxon was willing to pay to learn how to patent life forms.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars breakthrough and epilogue, February 10, 2005

By 

Christopher Munden (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution (Hardcover)

For anyone else, a career that includes a stint at Harvard as a professor and mentor to numerous successful scientists, several decades spent rebuilding Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory into a world-renowned scientific center, and the opportunity to steer the Human Genome Project, would be considered a tremendous success. For James Watson, that was all just an epilogue to his Nobel Prize-winning deduction of the structure of DNA. Double Helix, Watson's million-selling account of this breakthrough, is one of the most compelling books ever written about science. Genes, Girls and Gamow, his recent book about his subsequent career, does not have the same power.

Victor McElheny largely covers the same periods that Watson describes in his autobiographical works, but he adds more description of Watson's education and concentrates more on his professional career. The book is well-researched and informative; McElheny interviewed scores of Watson's associates and pored over previous reminiscences by Watson and Crick, among others. A previous employee and a longtime admirer of Watson's, McElheny occasionally veers toward hagiography, but he is generally balanced in his portrayal of the eccentric scientist. Unfortunately, the biography suffers from several flaws that are no fault of the author. Watson was working on his own book, so declined to be interviewed for this work. The absence of his account is telling, especially in regard to his private life and his resignation from the Human Genome Project. The chapters on the discovery of DNA structure are thoroughly engaging, but Watson has already told that story. The rest of the book reads like a long anticlimax; it is interesting but lacks the motivating story of Watson's years at Cambridge.

This is a good book about one of the most intriguing figures of 20th-century science, but my biggest praise for it is that it inspired me to reread the Double Helix. As McElheny shows, Watson never rested on his laurels, but his later career was not as remarkable as his early breakthrough. There are few things that are.