Quotes by Francis Crick

About Francis Crick:

Francis Harry Compton Crick was a British molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, most noted for being a co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953 with James Watson. Together with Watson and Maurice Wilkins, he was jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it go...

Francis Crick

It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.

Francis Crick

It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clicks into place. One immediately sees how many previously puzzling facts are neatly explained by ...

Francis Crick

If the code does indeed have some logical foundation then it is legitimate to consider all the evidence, both good and bad, in any attempt to deduce it.

Francis Crick

We've discovered the secret of life.

Francis Crick

We are sometimes asked what the result would be if we put four +'s in one gene. To answer this my colleagues have recently put together not merely four but six +'s.

Francis Crick

Unfortunately it makes the unambiguous determination of triplets by these methods much more difficult than would be the case if there were only one triplet for each amino acid.

Francis Crick

This seems highly likely, especially as it has been shown that in several systems mutations affecting the same amino acid are extremely near together on the genetic map.

Francis Crick

Moreover the incorporation requires the same components needed for protein synthesis, and is inhibited by the same inhibitors. Thus the system is most unlikely to be a complete artefact and is very probably closely related to genuine protein synthesi...

Francis Crick

It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid - usually by DNA, although certain small viruses use RNA as their genetic material.

Francis Crick

It now seems very likely that many of the 64 triplets, possibly most of them, may code one amino acid or another, and that in general several distinct triplets may code one amino acid.

Francis Crick

It now seems certain that the amino acid sequence of any protein is determined by the sequence of bases in some region of a particular nucleic acid molecule.

Francis Crick

It has yet to be shown by direct biochemical methods, as opposed to the indirect genetic evidence mentioned earlier, that the code is indeed a triplet code.

Francis Crick

If, for example, all the codons are triplets, then in addition to the correct reading of the message, there are two incorrect readings which we shall obtain if we do not start the grouping into sets of three at the right place.

Francis Crick

If poly A is added to poly U, to form a double or triple helix, the combination is inactive.

Francis Crick

The meaning of this observation is unclear, but it raises the unfortunate possibility of ambiguous triplets; that is, triplets which may code more than one amino acid. However one would certainly expect such triplets to be in a minority.

Francis Crick

The balance of evidence both from the cell-free system and from the study of mutation, suggests that this does not occur at random, and that triplets coding the same amino acid may well be rather similar.

Francis Crick

How is the base sequence, divided into codons? There is nothing in the backbone of the nucleic acid, which is perfectly regular, to show us how to group the bases into codons.

Francis Crick

For simplicity one can think of the + class as having one extra base at some point or other in the genetic message and the - class as having one too few.

Francis Crick

Do codons overlap? In other words, as we read along the genetic message do we find a base which is a member of two or more codons? It now seems fairly certain that codons do not overlap.

Francis Crick

Author Bio

  • NameFrancis Crick
  • DescriptionBritish molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA
  • BornJune 8, 1916
  • DiedJuly 28, 2004
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionBiologist; Geneticist; Physicist; Neuroscientist; Biochemist; Physician; Molecular Biologist
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society; Albert Lasker Award For Basic Medical Research; Nobel Prize In Physiology Or Medicine; Order Of Merit; Copley Medal; Royal Medal; Philadelphia Liberty Medal