11/08/2025
In Memoriam: James D. Watson (1928-2025)
Hope Funds for Cancer Research notes with great sorrow the passing of the distinguished biologist and researcher James D. Watson, Ph.D, our past Award Recipient and Scientific Advisory Council member, on November 7 on Long Island New York.
James Dewey Watson is best known as a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. He was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, University College London. The publication of the double helix structure of DNA can be regarded as a turning point in science: human understanding of life was fundamentally changed, and the modern era of biology began.
Dr. Watson received his B.S. from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Indiana University with Dr. Salvador Luria as his advisor. He did postdoctoral research with the biochemist Dr. Herman Kalckar in Copenhagen. From 1952 to 1956, Dr. Watson worked at the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory in England, where he first met his future collaborator and friend Francis Crick. In late February 1953, Watson and Crick deduced the double helix structure of DNA and its alphabet of bases represented by the letters ATGC which spell out the code of life and is always paired in a way to pass on genetic information faithfully with every cell division. Near the end of their paper Watson and Crick concluded, with what is regarded as the most famous understatement in science, “It has not escaped our attention that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” In fact, most scientists regard the elucidation of the double helix as one of the most important research achievements ever, a discovery that will be remembered along with the work of Newton, Darwin and Einstein.
Dr. Watson’s illustrious career only began with the double helix. From 1956 to 1976, he was on the faculty of the Harvard University Biology Department, promoting research in molecular biology. From 1968 Dr. Watson served as director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. At CSHL, he shifted his research emphasis to the study of cancer, along with making CSHL a world leading research center in molecular biology. In 1994, he started as president and served for 10 years. He was then appointed chancellor, serving until 2007, and is currently chancellor emeritus. Between 1988 and 1992, Dr. Watson played a leading roll in obtaining public support for the National Institutes of Health, helping to establish the Human Genome Project and he served as the project’s first director.
In 2013 the Hope Funds for Cancer Research Board of Trustees established the James D. Watson Award to recognize discoveries that fundamentally change science and our understanding of life; the types of discoveries made by Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and James Watson, Dr. Watson was the first recipient of this award, presented to him in 2014 in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the Hope Funds Awards Gala. The second, and only other recipient of the James D. Watson award is Joan A. Steitz, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Steitz received the award for her discoveries involving RNA. Dr. Steitz was the first female graduate student to join James Watson's laboratory, while she was a graduate student at Harvard University, and she often credits him with contributing to career.
Our deepest sympathy is extended to Dr. Watson's wife Elizabeth, family, friends and colleagues.
