Crick, Francis H. C. (1916-2004), was a British biologist. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with American biologist James D. Watson and biophysicist Maurice H. F. Wilkins, also of the United Kingdom. Crick and Watson built a model of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the substance that transmits genetic information from one generation to the next. The model, resembling a twisted ladder, is called the Watson-Crick model. Later, Crick helped explain how DNA determines the development of living things. See Cell (The 1900’s); DNA.
Originally a physicist, Crick was involved in the development of radar technology during World War II. He began research work in molecular biology at Cambridge University in 1949. In 1976, he became a research professor at the Salk Institute in San Diego. Francis Harry Compton Crick was born on June 8, 1916, in Northampton, England, and studied at London and Cambridge universities. He died on July 29, 2004.
