PBA Galleries

Includes:

• Watson, James D. A Passion for DNA. Black faux-leather, lettered in silver; dust jacket. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, [2000]. First Edition. Signed on the half-title by James D. Watson.
• Crick, Francis. Typed Letter, signed, on his personalized Salk Institute for Biological Studies letterhead. 11x8½". Dated May 14, 1997. In full: "Dear Ms. Marinacci, About Krafft's ideas. The idea that a regularly repeating backbone is likely to take up a helical configuration is a very obvious one, and was known well before Pauling suggested the α-helix. His other ideas are largely incorrect. My advice would be not to waste time on him. Yours sincerely, Francis Crick."

A nice pair of signed items from the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule. The discovery of DNA was signature development in the understanding of genetics, marking the transition between two ages of what might be called the "classical age" of biology and a second "age" of molecular biology. Watson, Crick and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medecine in 1962 "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material."