James Watson, Co-Discoverer of the Structure of DNA, Is Dead at 97

Source: New York Times

Nov. 7, 2025, 2:19 p.m. ET


James D. Watson, who entered the pantheon of science at age 25 when he joined in the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of the most momentous breakthroughs in the history of science, died on Thursday in East Northport, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 97. His death, in a hospice, was confirmed by his son Duncan, who said Dr. Watson was transferred to the hospice this week from a hospital, where he had been treated for an infection.

Dr. Watson’s role in decoding DNA, the genetic blueprint for life, would have been enough to establish him as one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. But he cemented that fame by leading the ambitious Human Genome Project and writing perhaps the most celebrated memoir in science.

For decades a famous and famously cantankerous American man of science, Dr. Watson lived on the grounds of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which, in another considerable accomplishment, he took over as director in 1968 and transformed from a relatively small establishment on Long Island with a troubled past into one of the world’s major centers of microbiology. He stepped down in 1993 and took a largely honorary position of chancellor.

But his official career there ended ignominiously in 2007 after he ignited an uproar by suggesting, in an interview with The Sunday Times in London, that Black people, over all, were not as intelligent as white people. He repeated the assertion in on-camera interviews for a PBS documentary about him, part of the “American Masters” series. When the program aired in 2018, the lab, in response, revoked honorary titles that Dr. Watson had retained.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/science/james-watson-dead.html

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Aside from his ignominious history, he did get to see one of the results of his and OTHERS (beside Francis Crick) - notably Rosalind Franklin and her X-ray crystallography work, with the mRNA vaccines.