Notes from abroad on the deciphering of biology's Rosetta Stone.

摘要

I worked in Marshall Nirenberg's group at NIH from September 1962 to September 1964. My admiration and consideration for Marshall and his group's contribution as recognized recently by the American Chemical Society is enormous. I now draw the parallel between how the Rosetta Stone enabled our culture to learn of the past in Egypt and the decipherment of the Genetic Code, for example, comparing the hieroglyphics and the string of DNA bases.The conformation of DNA was worked out by another hero of mine, Francis Crick, in collaboration with James Watson by glorified inspired guess work. My PhD supervisor, Dan Brown at Cambridge University, determined the chemical structures of DNA and RNA together with Nobel Prize winner Alexander Todd (later Lord Todd). At Dan's 70th birthday party, Lord Todd averred: "What we did, Dan was to solve the structure of nucleic acid including DNA. All that Watson and Crick did was to solve the conformation". As usual, the great man Todd spoke some basic truths bluntly. Actually Alexander Todd forged the makings of my career.