走进剑桥大学 第17期:克里克和沃森

The names of James Watson and Francis Crick are bound together forever because the scientific discovery they made was truly a joint enterprise，Watson and Crick were the first to describe the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, the molecule that carries our genes and determines everything from the color of our eyes to the shape of our fingernails. Even though Watson and Crick's collaboration lasted only a few years, their achievement was huge enough to tie their names together forever in the history of science and to establish a firm footing for what was then a radical new branch of science: molecular biology. In doing so，they paved the way for the early detection of genetic diseases such as sickle-cell anemia, and for new scientific leaps such as animal cloning.

詹姆斯沃森和弗朗西斯克里克这两个名字永远联系在了一起，因为他们取得的重大科学发现是两人共同的事业。沃森和克里克是第一次向世人描述脱氧核糖核酸或DNA结构的两位科学家。DNA这种分子携带着人类的基因并决定着从眼珠的颜色到 手指甲形状的人身上的一切部位。尽管沃森和克里克的合作仅持续几年，两人取得的成就之大足以令他们名垂科学史。他们还为分子生物学的发展打下了坚实的基础，而那时的分子生物学只是门新兴学科。两人的发现为诸如镰状细胞性贫血等遗传疾病的早期诊断和诸如动物克隆等的新科学飞跃铺平了道路。

Francis Harry Compton Crick was born on 8 June 1916 near Northampton. He studied physics at University College of London, and during World Wax Two he worked for the Admiralty Research Laboratory, from which emerged a group of many notable scientists. He changed from physics to biology and in 1947 began to work at Cambridge University. By 1949，he was working at the Medical Research Council unit at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. In 1951, an American student，James Watson, arrived at the unit and the two began to work together

1916年6月8日，弗朗西斯哈里康普顿克里克出生于北安普敦附近。他在伦敦大学学院学习物理。二战期间，克里克为英国海军研究实验室工作，那里涌现出了很多知名的科学家。后来他从物理系转到生物系并于1947年开始在剑桥大学工作。1949年，克里克开始在剑桥大学卡文迪什实验室的医学研究中心工作。1951年，一位美国学生詹姆斯沃森来到了中心，于是两人开始一起工作。

James Dewey Watson was born on 6 April 1928 in Chicago and studied at the universities of Chicago, Indiana and Copenhagen. He then moved to Cambridge University. Watson and Crick worked together on studying the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)，the molecule that contains the hereditary information for cells.

詹姆斯杜威沃森1928年4月6日出生于芝加哥并先后在芝加哥大学、印第安纳大学和哥本哈根大学学习。后来他去了剑桥大学。沃森和克里克一同致力于DNA结构的研究，DNA (脱氧核糖核酸）是一种携带细胞遗传信息分子。

In April 1953，they published the news of their discovery, a molecular structure of DNA based on the double helix. Their model served to explain how DNA replicates and how hereditary information is coded on it. This set the stage for the rapid advances of molecular biology.

1953年4月，克里克和沃森宣布了他们的发现：DNA的双螺旋结构。他们提供的DNA分子结构模型解释了DNA是怎样复制遗传信息，而遗传信息又是如何在DNA上编码的。这一发现为分子生物学的快速发展创造了条件。

Francis Crick continued to work in genetics and then moved into brain research, becoming a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. He died on 28 July 2004.

弗朗西斯克里克继续自己在遗传学方面的研究，而后转到脑研究，成为美国加州萨克生物研究学院的教授。他于2004年7月28日辞世。

From 1988 to 1992, James Watson directed the Human Genome Project at the American National Institutes of Health. He was Instrumental in obtaining funding for the project and in encouraging cooperation between governments and leading scientists.

从1988年到1992年,詹姆斯沃森指导了美国国家卫生研究院的人类基因组计划。他在为该项目获得资金及鼓励政府和顶尖科学家合作等方面起了重要作用。