Overview
- Watson died Thursday in hospice care on Long Island after treatment for an infection at age 97, according to his son and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for modeling DNA’s double-helix using X‑ray data from Rosalind Franklin and colleagues, a source of lasting credit disputes.
- At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, he served as director, president, and chancellor over decades and is credited with transforming the institution into a leading center for molecular biology.
- He was the first director of the Human Genome Project and resigned in 1992 over opposition to patenting gene sequences, advocating that genomic data remain in the public domain.
- Repeated remarks about race led to his removal from roles in 2007 and the loss of honorary titles in 2019, and he sold his Nobel medal in 2014 before the buyer, Alisher Usmanov, returned it.