James Watson

James Dewey Watson is the man known for his great contribution to science. He and Francis Crick created the Double-Helix which later helped many other scientists. James Dewey Watson was born April 6, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He is still alive today. Watson’s childhood was spent in Chicago, Illinois. As a child, he lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was his parents' empathy — they encouraged constant trips to the local store for chocolate milk shakes to fatten him up. He attended eight years or Horace Grammar School and two years of South Shore High School. He received a Tuition Scholarship to the University of Chicago and in the summer of 1943, he entered there Experimental four-year College. Watson’s mother was Jean Mitchell who was a tailor before she was married and his father was James Watson who was a business man. Watson was an only child. His interests were bird-watching which turned into a serious desire to learn genetics. He was bullied when he was younger. Watson continued with his studies. In 1947, he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Zoology. He also received his Doctorate Degree in Zoology in 1950 at the Indiana University in Bloomington. Since the fall of 1956, he has been in the Harvard Biology Department as a professor. He was greatly influenced by H.J. Muller, a geneticist, T.M. Sonneborn, a Geneticist, and S.E. Luria, a Microbiologist. In 1968, Watson wrote the Double Helix, which is a Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. The honors that have to come to Watson include: the John Collins Warren Prize of the Massachusetts General Hospital, with Crick in 1959; the Eli Lilly Award in Biochemistry in the same year; the Lasker Award, with Crick and Wilkins in 1960; the Research Corporation Prize, with Crick in 1962; membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and Foreign membership of the Danish Academy of Arts and