James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning American scientist who co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in a landmark moment of 20th-century science, has died at 97.
Watson died in hospice care on Long Island, New York, after a brief illness, his son confirmed Friday. His former institution, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), where he served as director for decades, announced his passing, noting the profound impact of his early work.
In 1953, at the age of just 25, Watson and his British colleague Francis Crick determined that DNA, the molecule of heredity, consists of two strands that coil around each other like a twisting ladder. This breakthrough, which relied on X-ray data from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, unlocked the “secret of life” by explaining how genetic information is stored and replicated.
For this discovery, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The work laid the foundation for modern genetics, biotechnology, and advancements in medicine and forensics that define the current era
While his scientific achievements were monumental, Watson’s later years were overshadowed by a series of widely condemned comments on race and genetics.
He repeatedly made claims in interviews and a 2019 documentary that genes cause a difference in average intelligence between Black and white people, remarks that the scientific community labelled as “reprehensible” and “unsupported by science.”
These statements led to severe professional consequences. CSHL, an institution he helped transform into a world-class research center, stripped him of his honorary titles in 2019, severing its remaining ties with the once-hallowed scientist. The controversy has left his legacy deeply divided, a stark contrast between his brilliant scientific insights and his personal views.
Beyond the double helix, Watson was a driving force in the scientific community. He authored the bestselling memoir The Double Helix (1968) and influential textbooks that educated generations of biologists.
He also served as the first director of the National Institutes of Health’s Human Genome Project, the ambitious effort to map the entire human genetic blueprint.
“As a scientist, his and Francis Crick’s determination of the structure of DNA… was a pivotal moment in the life sciences,” CSHL said in a statement Friday.
Watson is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Lewis, and their two sons, Duncan and Rufus. Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.
