Back to overview

Research School Network: Where does Scientific Information come from? The research supply chain in action

Where does Scientific Information come from? The research supply chain in action

Share on:

by Blackpool Research School
on the

Whilst teaching my fantastic Year 11 class the new AQA GCSE (4.6.1.4​‘DNA and the genome’) last week I was presented with 2 golden research questions:

“Sir, where did they get all this DNA information from? How do we know its right?”

By information, I assume pupil X was referring to:

chrome_2017-10-23_08-53-10

From this, we embarked upon a journey of discovery aided by an excellent PBS Documentary (The Secret of Life-PBS 2003) to track the information as it moved through the processes from original research to formal publication- the research supply chain.

We discovered that Crick and Watson were aware of prior research by two time Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling and his colleague Robert Corey (1951) on the structure of proteins. These were recorded in specialised scientific journals.

In 1952, Pauling and Corey submitted their proposal of the structure of DNA to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This was followed in 1953 by its publication and a letter to Nature alerting readers to its existence.

Ref-Pauling, L and Corey, R ​‘Structure of the nucleic acid’ Nature 1953

In 1953, Watson and Crick pulling together work from Pauling, Chargaff and Wilkins published their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA as a general scientific journal article giving the main findings but not going into too much detail.

Ref-Watson, J.D. and Crick, F.H.C. ​‘Molecular structure of nucleic acids’

This was to an audience of mainly students, professors and researchers but could be read by anyone. They then followed this up with a conference paper for other researchers in the field.

Ref- ​‘Watson, J.D. and Crick, F.H.C. ​‘The Structure of DNA’, Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology 1953

In 1953 this was then reported in newspapers with an audience of the general public but specifically those with an interest in Science

‘Drs Watson and Crick find clue to Chemistry of heredity by solving molecular pattern of nucleic acid DNA’ New York Times 13 June 1953

In 1954, Watson and Crick published an article in a specialised scientific journal

Crick, F.H.C. and Watson, J. D (1954) ​‘The Complementary Structure of deoxyribonucleic acid’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

Within a few years their discovery was taught in schools and included in textbooks. In 1962 they win the Nobel Prize, prompting a series of articles in newspapers and popular magazines. In 1969 James Watson publishes his memoirs in a popular science book

Watson, J.D. (1969) The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA.

In 2003, to mark the 50th anniversary more popular science books and articles are published. New technology makes it possible to digitise original letters and papers on websites.

‘The Francis Crick Papers’ National Library of Medicine

Further advances make it possible for freely available content to be collaboratively written from people all around the world on websites.

‘Molecular structure of nucleic acids’ Wikipedia

These questions and subsequent lesson helped us and hopefully you the reader illustrate and understand how research reaches us through the research supply chain. By looking back over various publications, we were able to trace the route through which the evidence about DNA was disseminated, helping us to understand and critically consider different information types. 

Blog Post PNA

More from the Blackpool Research School

Show all news

This website collects a number of cookies from its users for improving your overall experience of the site.Read more