NATS 1760 Lecture Notes - Patent Office, Human Genome Organisation, Maurice Wilkins
29 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
March 6, 2012: discovering the structure of dna: the double helix. The race to find the structure of dna took place in the mid 20th century. After wwii, scientists were well aware that dna is the key to understanding the secrets of human heredity. However, following wwii, the key question was how dna looked like because no scientists could effectively work with dna if they didn"t know the structure. As such following wwii, scientists who had spent much of their time involved in a project leading to human death and devastation, became interested in a project that was key to unlocking the secret to human life. They did so knowing that if they were the first at the finish line, it would mean great reward for them (i. e. , scientific prestige, enhanced reputation, their name would be written in the history books)
