James Watson and Francis Crick were in some ways an unlikely pair. The British Crick, at 35, still had no Ph.D. The American Watson, 12 years Crick's junior, had graduated from the University of Chicago at 19 and received his doctorate at 22. Crick had had come from the field of physics into chemistry and biology. Watson had studied ornithology, then gave up birds for viruses. After meeting Watson in a Universtiy of Cambridge lab, they became friends and started sharing their same attraction to DNA.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) contains the genetic instructions specifying the biological development of all cellular forms of life (and many viruses). DNA is often referred to as the molecule of heredity, as it is responsible for the genetic propagation of most inherited traits. During reproduction, DNA is replicated and transmitted to the offspring.

Studies of DNA had revealed much about its chemical and physical nature, but Watson believed that its function could not be understood fully until its structure was known. Crick and Watson used the results from previous studies and X-ray diffraction data to help them determine DNA's molecular structure. By 1953 they had built a model which incorporated all known features of DNA, and proposed the double helix structure which is commonly referred to as the Watson-Crick model of DNA.

Crick, Watson and Wilkins were awarded a Nobel prize for this work in 1962.