The breakthrough came with models cut out of cardboard: the discovery of the double helix structure of the DNA molecule and the associated storage of genetic information is one of the most important scientific achievements of the 20th century. 70 years ago, on April 25, 1953, American James Watson and Briton Francis Crick published a one-page description in the journal Nature that would change molecular biology and the world forever.
In the meantime, DNA analysis not only helps to solve crimes that are decades old, but also revolutionizes areas such as agriculture and medicine. The molecule could even play a role as a storage medium in the IT sector one day.
announcement in a pub
In the fight against cancer, great hopes are now being pinned on approaches that would have been unthinkable without the discovery of the time. The development of the corona vaccines based on the related molecule RNA, such as that of the Mainz-based company Biontech, would have been impossible without the fundamental findings of 1953.
On a Saturday afternoon, Watson placed templates cut out of cardboard in the form of the nucleobases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine, components of DNA (abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid, deoxyribonucleic acid), as he later explained. He wanted to find out how they connect to each other. Suddenly he realized: Adenine and thymine as well as guanine and cytosine combine to form base pairs, which in turn arrange themselves into a spiral-staircase-like structure – ideally suited for storing huge amounts of information. In a Cambridge pub, the researchers announced shortly thereafter that they had discovered the “mystery of life,” Watson recalled.
The discovery brought the knowledge that DNA is the carrier of genetic information. With the discovery of the double helix structure, Watson and Crick also recognized the main features of the process by which DNA reproduces itself: Like a zipper, the two strands can be separated and thus, each completed with suitable building blocks, doubled. “That is a simpler and more beautiful answer than we ever dared hope,” Watson later said. The two then employed researchers at the University of Cambridge received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine together with Maurice Wilkins, who works at King’s College in London.
Biochemist Rosalind Franklin, who died in 1958, and her collaborator Raymond Gosling were not honored for their contribution, although the two published an article in the same issue of Nature that supported Watson’s and Crick’s findings. With their X-ray images, they also made a crucial contribution to the discovery. In the meantime, the main criticism is that the three Nobel Prize winners did not adequately appreciate the importance of Franklin’s research, from which they had benefited in part without their knowledge.
DNA research has made tremendous progress over the past 70 years. But although the human genome is now considered to be almost completely decoded, the scientists are still at the beginning, as John Diffley from the Francis Crick Institute in London said in an interview with the German Press Agency. “We still have a huge amount of work to do to understand how DNA sequences and differences in DNA sequences affect and ultimately manifest themselves in different expressions in organisms and humans.”
This knowledge is used, among other things, to make sensible use of methods such as the so-called Crispr/Cas9 gene scissors. It can be used to switch off individual genes, for example in order to breed plant varieties or animal species that are resistant to certain diseases. And the method also promises hope for people in the fight against diseases. For example, work is being done on gene therapies for people with HIV or certain forms of cancer.
Other results from DNA research also give hope for additional methods in cancer therapy, as Sam Godfrey from the organization Cancer Research UK explains in the dpa interview. In the future, tumors are to be genetically analyzed even more frequently in order to enable individual therapy. One of the basic things to understand is that cancer is not just one disease. It’s an incredible array of genetic flaws and other things that end up causing cells to lose the ability to follow directions.”
The diagnosis of cancer diseases via blood analyzes is also of great importance, with which genetic characteristics of cancer cells can be detected much earlier than before. “If it helps diagnose patients earlier, they have a much better chance of survival,” says Godfrey.
He also refers to recently published research results from the Francis Crick Institute, according to which the remains of ancient viruses were detected in the human genome, which trigger an immune response in some people with cancer. This gives hope for a further therapeutic approach if the body’s self-healing powers could be activated in a targeted manner.
Biontech’s cancer research also relies on immunotherapy. The Mainz-based company wants to set up a research and development center in Great Britain for this purpose, in which up to 10,000 patients are to be treated with personalized mRNA cancer immunotherapies by 2030.
