Beschreibung:

WATSON, James Dewey (b. 1928), Francis Harry Compton CRICK (b.1916) et al. Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids . [offprint from: Nature , CLXXI, no. 4356, pp.737-741]. [London]: Fisher, Knight & Co., Ltd for Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1953. 8° (209 x 139mm). Collation: [A] 6 χ 1 , one stapled gathering with a final leaf tipped onto the inner margin of [A]6v. 2 half-tone and 2 line illustrations. FIRST EDITION, THE RARE THREE-PAPER OFFPRINT ISSUE. THE FIRST PUBLISHED ACCOUNT OF THE MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF DNA, 'AN EPOCH-MAKING ACHIEVEMENT' (Eimas Heirs ). Deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) was first identified in 1869 by the Swiss physiologist Johann Friedrich Miescher who had discovered it in the nuclei of white blood cells in pus, leading him to initially name it 'nuclein'. However, the significance of its role as a medium of genetic information was only demonstrated by Charles Avery in 1943. In Great Britain, research into DNA was being conducted by Watson and Crick at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratories (where the problem was approached through molecular modelling techniques), and by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College, London, employing X-ray diffraction techniques to analyse DNA. Once the two teams combined the results of their separate studies, it became apparent that the X-ray photographs of the London scientists provided the evidence to support the hypothetical 'double helix' structure of paired chains posited by Watson and Crick, and therefore made it possible to show how DNA can replicate itself and thus transmit genetic information. As Watson and Crick stated, 'It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material' (p.3)--a mechanism that provided the basis for many important studies and advances in the following half century, including the Human Genome Project (of which Watson was a director from 1988-1992). In 1962 Watson, Crick and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine; Franklin's early death in 1958 denied her the possibility of receiving the prize. Two offprint issues were printed; one simply reprinted Watson and Crick's paper, and the second, present issue reprinted the three key papers that provided a full explanation of the background to the discovery: (i) Watson and Crick 'A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid'; (ii) M.H.F. Wilkins, A.R. Stokes and H.R. Wilson 'Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids'; (iii) Rosalind E. Franklin and R.G. Gosling 'Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate'. For the three-paper offprint issue, the text of the three papers was partially reset, printed as a single column on a small octavo page (as opposed to the double-column octavo pages of the journal issue), and repaginated [1]-[14]. As with most offprints, the print run would have been small, and, although it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of copies printed, this issue is considerably rarer than the journal issue; only one copy of this offprint is recorded at auction by ABPC since 1975. Grolier Medicine 99. For the journal issue of 'A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', cf. Dibner Heralds (1980) 200; Eimas Heirs 2342; Garrison-Morton Medical Bibliography (1993) 256.3.