Which royal medal did Francis Crick receive in 1972?

Francis Crick received the Royal Medal in 1972. The Royal Society awards this medal for distinguished contributions to the physical sciences, and Crick’s recognition reflected his foundational work in molecular biology.

Crick’s best-known achievement was explaining, with James Watson, the structure of DNA. Their 1953 Nature paper proposed the double helix and showed how complementary base pairing could help explain genetic copying. Crick’s theoretical insight was especially important: he connected DNA’s structure with the way biological information is stored and transferred.

The Royal Medal came a decade after Crick shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Watson and Maurice Wilkins. He later received the Copley Medal in 1975, another major Royal Society honour, which is why the two awards are sometimes confused.

The Davy Medal is also associated with chemistry, the Rumford Medal with physical science, and the Copley Medal with especially distinguished scientific research. But for the specific year 1972, the canonical answer is the Royal Medal. Crick was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1959.