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Sixty years after the discovery of DNA ’s spiraling , ladder - like social structure first hinted at the mechanism by which life copies itself , one of theNobel Prizemedals honoring this achievement is up for sale .
Three men who played all important role in decipheringDNA ’s double helixin 1953 later received theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine . The family of one of those human beings , Francis Crick , plan to betray his medal , the accompanying diploma and other items at auction with a portion of the yield set to gain research institution in the United States and the United Kingdom .
The 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to Dr. Francis Crick for his work in the discovery of the structure of DNA will be offered by his family in a public auction conducted by Heritage Auctions in New York City on April 10 with a portion of proceeds to benefit scientific research at The Francis Crick Institute, scheduled to open in London in 2015.
" It had been insert away for so long , " said Kindra Crick , Francis Crick ’s 36 - year - onetime granddaughter , of the ribbon . " We really were interested in finding someone who could calculate after it , and possibly put it on showing so it could inspire the next generation of scientist . " Francis Crick fleet awayin 2004 at the historic period of 88 .
The value of Nobel amber
There is little common law for this cut-rate sale . Nobel laurel wreath look to have transfer hands publicly in only a couple of instances . This particular medal , like others made before 1980 , is struck in 23 - carat gold , and spot a particularly high - profile accomplishment in biology , one primal tomodern genetics .
The auction theatre plow the sale , Heritage Auctions , has valued the medal and diploma at $ 500,000 , which is " an educated guesstimate , " sound out Sandra Palomino , Heritage Auctions ' manager of historic manuscripts . estimation by Heritage ’s in - house coin expert went as high-pitched as $ 5 million , Palomino said . [ See Photos of Crick ’s Medal & Other Auction Items ]
The April auction sale will also admit Crick ’s award check with his endorsement on the back , the scientist ’s research lab coating , his horticulture log , marine journals and books . on an individual basis , the mob hopes to sell a letter Crick wrote in 1953 to his then-12 - year - older son Michael , who is Kindra ’s sire , describing the discovery ’s meaning . The auction house Christies , which Kindra Crick said is handling the sale , declined to confirm plan to sell this letter .
Out of the box
The decoration was not displayed much within Crick ’s kinsfolk . Kindra remembers that the Nobel , which she has yet to see herself , was locked in a room with her grandfather ’s other laurels and other family heirlooms after he moved to California at the years of 60 . After the scientist ’s wife , Odile , make it away in 2007 , the medal was seclude in a secure deposit box . Crick ’s children , admit Kindra ’s father , Michael , attended the award ceremony in 1962 , but watch almost nothing of the palm afterward .
Kindra plans to get a look at the medal before the auction .
" My grandfather was not the character of personality to show off , " she said . " His conversation tended to be on what ’s next as contradict to reminiscing about the past … I guess he always thought there was more to come . "
Crick ’s syndicate hopes to see the decoration displayed in public after its sales agreement ; however , Kindra Crick acknowledged that a public auction offered no warrantee a buyer would exhibit the laurels . But she is affirmative , saying those someone or institutions with enough interest in skill to conjure on the medal are also likely to exhibit it publicly . [ Creative Genius : The World ’s Greatest Minds ]
Crick ’s family and Heritage Auctions project to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the medal and the other item to The Francis Crick Institute , a medical research institute scheduled to afford in London in 2015 . A portion of the take from the cut-rate sale of the letter of the alphabet will go to benefit the Salk Institute in California , where Francis Crick studiedconsciousnesslater in his vocation , Kindra said .
Sixty years later
On Feb. 28 , 1953 , according to fable , Crick and his colleague James Watson announce that they had discovered the " enigma of biography " in a pub buy at by other Cambridge University scientist .
This followed Watson ’s realization that the molecular bonds between the two types of fundament pairs in DNA — A with thymine and cytosine with guanine — were identical in shape , evoke a double helix with complementary half , Watson recounts in " The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix " ( Simon & Schuster , 2012 ) .
This find was the result of a combination of approaches ; Watson and Crick built models , trying to determine how the atom known to make up DNA ( deoxyribonucleic back breaker ) fit together . Meanwhile , two of their colleagues , Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin , create images by bounce X - rays off deoxyribonucleic acid quartz glass .
One of Franklin ’s images , called Photograph 51 , provided central evidence of a helical shape .
Crick , Watson and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in 1962 . Franklin did not because she take place away in 1958 , and the Nobel Prize is not award posthumously .
strain means function
In the years prior to this discovery , scientist knew of the universe of DNA ( a type of particle known as a nucleic window pane ) , but not what it see like or its true function . They also knew cistron carried traits from generation to multiplication , but many scientist believed cistron to be made of protein , say Jan Witkowski , executive theatre director of the Banbury Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York .
The discovery of the social structure of DNA was fundamental to empathize the mote ’s function as the code for genes . Watson and Crick empathise this , but when they described their find in a paper in the journal Nature in April 1953 , they wrote coyly of the implication : " It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggest a potential copying chemical mechanism for genetic material . " [ Code of Life : Photos of DNA Structures ]
However , in the letter to 12 - year - old Michael , dated March 19 , 1953 , Crick draw a diagram spelling out the scientists ' possibility of how DNA replicated : the double whorl and its pedestal - pair rung furcate to make templates for new strand .
" In other words , we think we have found the basic copying mechanics by which life come from life , " Crick wrote to his Word . The scientists signed the letter , which come along in " The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix , " " peck of love , Daddy . "
A geneticist himself , Witkowski lists the breakthrough of the structure of DNA as one of the three most pivotal achievement in biology , along with Charles Darwin ’s possibility of phylogeny by natural pick andGregor Mendel ’s principles of inheritance .
" Of course , it was n’t so much what each breakthrough was in itself , but what avenues it open up and what it lead on to , " say Witkowski , who with Alexander Gann , edit the " Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix . "
