I am not sure how many people know this Nobel Winner. In china, I first know this name by studing biological chemistry course at university. He is a person who I never have chance to see, I think. But last week, not only did I saw him, but I enjoied his lecture. That is really exciting time.

James Watson born in Chicage, Illinois, in 1928. He received a B.S. (1947) from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. (1950) from Indiana University, both in zoology. Following a National Research Fellowship in Copenhagen and a National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, England, he spent two years at the California Institute of Technology. He jointed the Harvard faculty in 1955 and became Professor in 1961.

When he was 34, he was rewarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery of the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Research on DNA-protein interactions launched a revolution in biology that led to modern recombinant DNA techniques. I have to say he is a genius and now he is a funny old man.

Then he became a full-time director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratoryi n 1976. In 1988 he was appointed Associate Director for Human Genome Research of the National Institutes of Health. In 1989 he was appointed Director of the National Center for Human Genome Research at the NIH. In 1992, Dr. Watson resigned his position at NCHGR after successfully launching a worldwide effort to map and sequence the human genome.