Which Nobel category honored Watson and Crick in 1962?

Watson and Crick were honored in the Nobel category Physiology or Medicine in 1962. They shared the prize with Maurice Wilkins for discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.

The award recognized the DNA double-helix work published by Watson and Crick in 1953, along with crucial experimental evidence from researchers at King’s College London. Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction data, including the famous Photo 51, helped reveal DNA’s helical structure, while Wilkins also contributed to the structural investigation.

The prize category can surprise readers because DNA is often discussed as a chemical substance. Nobel awards have sometimes placed molecular-genetics discoveries in Chemistry and sometimes in Physiology or Medicine. In 1962, the committee emphasized DNA’s biological role in heredity and the transfer of genetic information, so the award went to Physiology or Medicine rather than Chemistry.

The Nobel Prize was divided into three equal shares among Crick, Watson, and Wilkins. Franklin was not a laureate: she died in 1958, and Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.