Content Collaboration

In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick built the first correct structural model of DNA. They used scale mod-els of atoms to work out their theories about how the structure was set up. When they discovered how the base pairs Adenine fit together with Thymine and Guanine fit together with Cytosine, they knew they had found a solution to DNA’s structural puzzle. Each nitrogenous base pair was held together by a weak hydrogen bond and stacked flat on top of each other like steps. To each base pair, a two sugar-one phosphate complex attached. This formed the so-called nucleic acid. But what made the structure come together in perfect harmony was how the two strands of DNA, that made the double helix, were discovered to wind in opposite directions. This set up of matching base pairs makes DNA well suited for replication. (See DNA Replication) The DNA model built by Watson and Crick and the accompanying paper published in Nature, showed how DNA’s base pair structure is suited for the copying of genetic material. In 1962 they, along with Mauric