In what year was James Watson born?

James Watson was born in 1928. He was born James Dewey Watson on 6 April 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, and later became one of the scientists associated with discovering DNA’s double-helix structure.

Watson entered the University of Chicago at a young age and initially studied zoology. His interests shifted toward genetics after reading Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 book What Is Life?, which argued that the mechanisms of heredity might ultimately be explained through physics and chemistry. He later earned a doctorate at Indiana University under geneticist Salvador Luria.

In 1951, Watson joined Francis Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Their collaboration produced the influential 1953 model of DNA, drawing on biochemical evidence and X-ray diffraction research. Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

A common mix-up is confusing Watson’s birth year with the year of the DNA breakthrough. Watson was born in 1928, while the double-helix model was published in 1953, when he was 25 years old.