Nice to meet you, Dr. James D. Watson

8:16 AM Léonie Dupuis 0 Comments

On Monday, June 14, I had the pleasure of meeting "Honest Jim" or better known as Dr. James D. Watson, one of the two discoverers of DNA.

Watson came to Ireland to help unveil a new monument at an elementary school, but he stopped by Trinity College to visit the Genetic Institute (which just happens to be where my lab is at) as well as give a talk on the life of Francis Crick. In fact, he has an interest in Irish Population Genetics, so for an hour before he gave his lecture, Dr. Watson was literally on the other side of the window from me. Here I was, at my desk cubicle, looking into the Primary Investigator's office looking at Dr. Watson having a chat with Dr. Dan Bradley and Dr. Russell McLaughlin (who is my boss) chatting up population genetics.

After their conversation, the whole lab walked over to the physics building where Dr. Watson would be speaking inside the Schrodinger Lecture Theatre. How is this significant? Well, Schrodinger was a lecturer at Trinity College for many years and wrote a book called What is Life? which would inspire Watson and Crick to pursue the science of DNA and genomics. So here we

 were, sitting in the lecture hall where 70 years Schrodinger decided to ask "What is life?" and explore the idea of genomes and chromosomes, listening to the discoverer of DNA speak of his research partner who were both inspired by the What is Life? lecture content.

The Schrodinger Lecture Theatre in the Physics building.

Dr. Watson actually revealed during his talk that 1. He hates the editor of Nature, the science journal, 2. He gave up religion at age 11, and that 3. He made up from his imagination the scene in which he and Crick discovered the double helix. This was devastating to me as I had spent most of my childhood learning about the dramatic scene of Watson and Crick discovering the double helix structure... As Watson would say, "science moves with a spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and the belief that the truth, once found, would be as simple as it is pretty." Well, the truth was not pretty in this case.
All in all, meeting Dr. Watson was like seeing a walking piece of scientific history. Without him, I wouldn't have had a summer research project in genetics. Perhaps the most famous of living Nobel Laureates, Dr. Watson has left a lasting impression on the field of science and I am glad to have had the privilege of meeting him in person.