Nobel Prize-Winning American Scientist James Watson has died aged 97.
His discovery of the structure of DNA opened the door to help understand how DNA is modified and set the stage for the rapid development of molecular biology.
But his honorary title was stripped in 2019 after he repeated comments about race and intelligence. In a TV program, he made a reference to a view that genes cause a difference in the average of blacks and whites in IQ tests.
The death of Watson, who discovered the Double-Helix structure of DNA in 1953, was confirmed by the BBC at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he worked and researched for decades.
Watson shared the Nobel in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins and Francis crick for DOVE DOVE DOVE HEGNET SCTECTECTECT.
“We have discovered the secret of life,” they said at the time.
His comments on race led him to say he felt targeted by the scientific community.
In 2007, the scientist, who used to work at Cambridge’s CaVendish Laboratory, told the Time newspaper that he “all our social policies are similar to us – while all the tests are false”.
The comments led to him losing his job as Chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.
His further comments in 2019 – when he again proposed a link between race and intelligence – led him to become an honorary professor at Chancellor Seritus, the Grace R Grace Professor.
“Dr Watson’s statements are incomprehensible, unsupported by science,” the laboratory said in a statement, adding that it would effectively reverse his apology.
DNA was discovered in 1869, but researchers still did not know its structure, and it was not until 1943 that scientists realized that DNA makes the genetic material of cells.
Working on images obtained by the researcher at King’s College Rosalind Franklin, without knowledge, Crick and Watson developed a physical model of the molecule.
Watson sold his Nobel Prize Gold Medal at auction for $4.8m (£3.6m) in 2014.
He said he plans to sell the medal because he was targeted by the scientific community after his remarks at the race.