Editing Cavendish Laboratory (section)

==Biology==
The Cavendish Laboratory has had an important influence on [[biology]], mainly through the application of [[X-ray crystallography]] to the study of structures of biological molecules. [[Francis Crick]] already worked in the Medical Research Council Unit, headed by [[Max Perutz]]<ref name=perutz>{{Cite journal |last1=Blow |first1=D. M. |author-link=David Mervyn Blow |doi=10.1098/rsbm.2004.0016 |title=Max Ferdinand Perutz OM CH CBE. 19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002: Elected F.R.S. 1954 |journal=[[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] |volume=50 |pages=227–256 |year=2004 |pmid=15768489 |jstor=4140521 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Fersht |first1=A. R. |author-link=Alan Fersht |title=Max Ferdinand Perutz OM FRS |doi=10.1038/nsb0402-245 |journal=Nature Structural Biology |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=245–246 |year=2002 |pmid=11914731 |doi-access=free}}</ref> and housed in the Cavendish Laboratory, when [[James Watson]] came from the United States and they made a breakthrough in discovering the structure of [[DNA]]. For their work while in the Cavendish Laboratory, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, together with [[Maurice Wilkins]] of [[King's College London]], himself a graduate of [[St. John's College, Cambridge]].

The discovery was made on 28 February 1953; the first Watson/Crick paper appeared in ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' on 25 April 1953. Sir [[Lawrence Bragg]], the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, where Watson and Crick worked, gave a talk at [[Guy's Hospital]] Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953 which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the ''[[News Chronicle]]'' of London, on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life." The news reached readers of ''[[The New York Times]]'' the next day; [[Victor K. McElheny]], in researching his biography, ''Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution'', found a clipping of a six-paragraph ''New York Times'' article written from London and dated 16 May 1953 with the headline "Form of `Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned." The article ran in an early edition and was then pulled to make space for news deemed more important. (''The New York Times'' subsequently ran a longer article on 12 June 1953). The Cambridge University undergraduate newspaper ''[[Varsity (Cambridge)|Varsity]]'' also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday 30 May 1953. Bragg's original announcement of the discovery at a [[Solvay Conference]] on [[proteins]] in Belgium on 8 April 1953 went unreported by the British press.

[[Sydney Brenner]], [[Jack D. Dunitz|Jack Dunitz]], [[Dorothy Hodgkin]], [[Leslie Orgel]], and Beryl M. Oughton, were some of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of [[DNA]], constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time they were working at the [[University of Oxford]]'s Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new [[Laboratory of Molecular Biology]]. According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA.<ref>Olby, Robert, ''Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets,'' Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2009, Chapter 10, p. 181 {{ISBN|978-0-87969-798-3}}</ref> Orgel also later worked with Crick at the [[Salk Institute for Biological Studies]].