Science: Commemorating a Revolution

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Acknowledging his former partner, Watson said he would not heap praise on him because he had already done that earlier this year during a conference at Cambridge, which Crick had skipped. Crick, ever the gadfly, characteristically bombarded the Boston speakers, even Nobel laureates, with sharp-edged questions aimed at sinking their pet ideas. Sighed one participant: "Ah, the same old Francis."

Watson and Crick, the old collaborators, have gone their separate ways. Watson, a professor of biology at Harvard for 15 years, has since 1968 been director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a center for molecular-biology research on New York's Long Island. It is focusing much of its attention on the basic mystery of cancer. Crick, after helping solve another important riddle about DNA—how it codes the genetic message within its spiral-staircase structure*—turned to other genetic puzzles. Initially, he worked on the problem of how the originally identical cells of higher organisms develop different characteristics in the embryo stage. More recently, as the holder of a special professorship at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif, Crick has been concentrating on neurobiology, the formation and operation of nerve cells.

Watson and Crick both debunk the idea that current work in recombinant DNA, endowing microorganisms with new genes, presents in any way a public peril. Says Watson: "There is no evidence that it is dangerous." Adds Crick: "I live near a small California township called Del Mar, and when the housewives are spending their time worrying about re|combinant DNA, I really think it has gone too far." Both are convinced that many of the problems in understanding diseases like cancer will not be overcome until scientists learn fully how genes are switched off and on. Says Crick: "What we want to know is not only how to turn on a single gene. We want to know the hierarchical controls [that determine each level of development in an organism]."

Both men are convinced the revolution they helped start is still very much alive. Says Crick: "If we look back in ten years' time, what we'll find is there are lots of [genetically engineered] products that we haven't even thought of." Even cancer may yield its secrets, Watson adds. When that happens, he says, "you can really think, Is there a way to modify biochemically this protein that's gone wrong?' " For Watson and Crick, three decades after their great discovery, the answer would obviously be yes. — By Frederic Golden. Reported by Jamie Murphy/Boston