50 Years of DNA

JULIE CLAYTON has a PhD in cancer research and immunology, and did four years' postdoctoral research in Los Angeles and London before embarking on a career as a freelance science writer. She has worked as an assistant producer for the BBC on television documentaries and reports for Horizon and Tomorrow's World, on the medical biography series Pioneers and on natural history films, and has published widely with Nature, New Scientists and many other scientific journals and websites. - CARINA DENNIS in now a freelance science writer based in Australia, having previously worked in Washington DC as Senior Editor at Nature responsible for genetics and genomics, and in New York City at Nature Genetics. She has a D Phil from the University of Oxford and is co-editor with Richard Gallagher of The Human Genome, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2001.

• Foreword Remarks from Phil Campbell Preface; J.Clayton & C.Dennis PART I: HISTORY On the Shoulders of Giants : The Quest to Solve DNA? 1953 Revisited What Happened Next: The Golden Years of Molecular Biology PART II: THE PRESENT Where AreThey Now? Structural Biology: Still Going Strong Genomes Galore Window on Evolution 'Artificial Evolution': Maize, Wheat, Rice Domestication PART III: THE FUTURE DNA as a Tool in Disease Diagnosis and Therapy DNA and Culture The Genie's Out PART IV: THE DOUBLE HELIX - 50 YEARS The Eternal Molecule; C.Dennis &P.Campbell PART V: FACSIMILE PAPERS FROM NATURE , 25 APRIL 1953 A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid ( Nature 171, 737-738; 1953); J.D.Watson & F.H.C.Crick Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids ( Nature 171, 738-740; 1953); M.H.F.Wilkins, A.R.Stokes & H.R.Wilson Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate ( Nature 171, 740-741; 1953), R.E.Franklin & R.G.Gosling HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Quiet Debut for the Double Helix; R.Olby Discovering Genes are Made of DNA; M.McCarty DNA and the 'Wronged Heroine'; B.Maddox PART VI: DNA IN MEDICINE AND SOCIETY The Mosaic That is Our Genome; S.Pääbo Nature, Nurture and Human Disease; A.Chakravarti & P.Little The Double Helix in Clinical Practice; J.I.Bell The Mona Lisa of Modern Science; M.Kemp PART VII: DNA: THE BIOLOGICAL MOLECULE Portrait of a Molecule; P.Ball Ten Years of Tension: Single-Molecule DNA Mechanics; C.Bustamante, Z.Bryant & S.B.Smith DNA in a Material World; N.C.Seeman DNA Replication and Recombination; B.Alberts DNA Damage and Repair; E.C.Freidberg The Double Helix and Immunology; G.J.V.Nossal The Digital Code of DNA; L.Hood & D.Galas Controlling the Double Helix; G.Felsenfeld & M.Groudine

'The editors have crafted a concise, reader-friendly and handsomely illustrated history of the discovery that revolutionized biology...' - Publishers Weekly'...a superbly illustrated, carefully researched and well-written DNA jubilee book...For me, and probably many other readers who are interested in the history of science, this book provides new insights into understanding what really happened in the first few months of 1953, and who we should remember as providing the decisive data required to elucidate the structure of DNA...50 Years of DNA should find its place on the desks of all those who are interested in history, the current state of DNA research and its future.' - Andrzej Stasiak, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, European Molecular Biology Organization, EMBO reports