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Press Trust of India | New York March 24, 2013 Last Updated at 12:40 IST
Letter revealing structure of DNA to fetch USD 2
million
A letter from DNA pioneer Francis Crick to his son in which he describes the secrets of his groundbreaking
model of DNA, weeks before it was made public, is expected to fetch up to USD 2 million at an auction here.
Crick used the handwritten note to tell his 12-year-old son Michael that he and his colleague Jim Watson had
"probably made a most important discovery", written weeks before the public announcement in 1953.
The seven-page handwritten letter expresses Crick's personal excitement of the recognition of the double helix
structure of DNA, the building block of life.
Michael, who was at a British boarding school, was instructed to "read this carefully so that you understand it.
When you come home we will show you the model."
In the letter, Crick writes: "Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery. We have built a
model for the structure of de-oxy-ribose-nucleic-acid (read it carefully) called DNA. You may remember that
the genes of the chromosomes - which carry the hereditary factors - are made up of protein and DNA,"
Christie's said in a statement.
"Our structure is very beautiful...Now we believe that the DNA is a code. That is, the order of the bases (the
letters) makes one gene different from another gene (just as one page of print is different from another)...In other
words we think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life.
"You can understand that we are very excited. Read this carefully so that you understand it. When you come
home we will show you the model," the letter reads further.
In 1962, Crick, Watson and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovery of the structure
and function of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory and at the University of Cambridge, the statement said.
On April 10, Christie's New York will offer the letter from Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure and function
of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), to his son, outlining the revolutionary discovery, dated March 19, 1953.
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