It is one of the keys to life and the evolution of all species, however most people hardly know anything more than its abbreviated name (DNA) and that of the two people who discovered what its structure was like: Watson and Crick.
Basically deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, is the molecule that encodes genetic information. It is a coiled double chain that is held together by weak hydrogen bonds between nucleotide base pairs. These nucleotides can be of four types depending on the type of nitrogenous bases they contain, that is: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T). In nature, base pairs are formed only between A and T and between G and C; therefore, the sequence of each individual chain can be deduced from its partner. Or what is the same, knowing one part of the chain, you know what the other part will be like.
But let’s start at the beginning: how was DNA discovered? As in many of the scientific findings it was practically by chance. Friedrich Miescher, a Swiss doctor who researched white blood cells from pus from surgical bandages, managed to isolate it from unintentionally. The isolated substance was rich in phosphates, had no sulfur, and was neither lipid nor protein. He decided to call it nuclein, although later, given the acidic nature of DNA, it ended up being called nucleic acid.
However, the most famous people related to DNA were the scientists James Watson and Francis Crick. Thanks to the X-ray diffraction images obtained by Rosalind Franklin, they proposed the double helix model of DNA in 1953 in the journal Nature , where there were also articles on the subject by Rosalind herself and Maurice Wilkins.
In fact, Crick, Watson and Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 “for their discoveries about the molecular structure of nucleic acids and their importance for the transfer of information in living matter,” pointed out the Swedish academy itself.
