Copyright San Diego Union-Tribune
A complicated set of feelings emerged on the Torrey Pines mesa Friday with the passing of molecular biologist James Watson, the scientist credited with co-discovering the structure of DNA, the molecule that defines what it means to be human. That discovery, made with co-researchers Francis Crick and Maurice H.F. Wilkins, led to a Nobel Prize in 1962. Crick moved west to La Jolla’s Salk Institute in 1976, and Watson, who died Thirsday at age 97, visited at least annually for many years. It was a situation, recalled Salk molecular biologist Ron Evans, that seemed almost unreal. Here, often in his office, asking for more information on his work deciphering the genetic mechanism of gene expression, were two of the men who literally sketched the first clear picture of the iconic double helix in a 1953 research paper printed in the journal Nature. Having made his life’s work the study of this very structure, Evans said, it was quite arresting to find himself answering questions posed by the progenitors of his field. “Being able to break it down to the molecular level and reveal how it worked, that was one reason why they liked to come and see me,” Evans said. “These icons, they would ask very specific questions to me about what I was doing, how I was doing it.” Of course, Watson’s legacy is far from a simple story of applying the scientific method to the chain of molecules inside every human cell. He became an extremely controversial figure for his statements about human intelligence, including his speculation that there were differences in intelligence between races that had genetic underpinnings. He stuck with those observations quite recently, including in a documentary, Decoding Watson, made by PBS. Evans said that it was clear that these were opinions not supported by scientific evidence, and he never endorsed them. But it was also difficult to send the man who helped discover the shape of the human genetic code packing when he showed up in his office asking relevant questions about his work. Watson’s passing, he said, does elicit a sad moment of soul-searching on the imperfection of those who ask and answer big questions. “It’s a moment of reflection about the people in science that make things happen, that ask questions that no one else might ask, and to solve problems in ways that others haven’t,” Evans said. Others in San Diego’s broad and deep biotechnology world also found themselves running into Watson at various points in their careers, though few with the frequency and depth that Evans experienced at Salk. Biologist J. Craig Venter, whose private effort to sequence the human genome rivaled the effort initially led by Watson through the National Institutes of Health, has not been shy in his criticism, mentioning disagreements and dust-ups in his biography, A Life Decoded. Asked Friday to comment on Watson’s passing, Venter, whose Human Longevity Inc. is still based in San Diego, declined to expound beyond the basics. “I’ve had lots of interactions with him … he made a couple of important contributions to science, helped build Cold Spring Harbor, but he was an extremely controversial person with some very messed up theories on women and race and genetics,” Venter said. The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island in New York was Watson’s home base, and the organization became a worldwide leader in genetic education, hosting 12,000 scientists per year from around the world, according to its website. Dr. Stephen Kingsmore, president and chief executive of the Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, said that it was not uncommon to see Watson at these meetings wearing a trademark straw hat. “He was unassuming and happy to have his picture taken with awestruck postdocs,” Kingsmore said. “He was regarded as a father figure of the human genetics and genomics fields, both because of his Nobel prize and also because of his leadership of the Human Genome Project. “However, he was completely ostracized for his beliefs about connections between genetics, race, intelligence and sexuality. He went from being the preeminent geneticist to what he referred to as an ‘unperson.’”
