2003-04-27

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Economist.com | The art of DNA

Fifty years after its discovery, the double helix is twisting itself ever deeper into popular culture “WE WISH to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.).” So began the modest introduction to what turned out to be one of the most momentous papers in the history of biology. It was published exactly 50 years ago, on April 25th 1953, in Nature. Now, even, advertisements for IBM boast that the company can help its customers get “into the DNA of business...to turn old processes into new profits”. Within two generations DNA has moved from academic obscurity—where even scientists needed to see it spelled out—to everyday language, an instantly recognised symbol with little connection to its scientific origins. Much of that cultural shift is courtesy of James Watson and Francis Crick, the authors of the paper in question. The structure they wished to suggest gave birth to an icon: the double helix.