Nobel Prize Recipient. Francis Crick received worldwide recognition after being awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Jointly, he shared this coveted award with James Watson, an American molecular biologist, and Maurice Wilkins, a New Zealand-born British biophysicist. According to the Nobel Prize committee, these three men received the award "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material." Although there were many who paved the way to this discovery, these men were given credit for the discovery of Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. In 1944, Oswald Avery had proved that DNA is the bearer of organisms' genetic code. Rosalind Franklin, an English chemist, played a critical role in this discovery, but her untimely 1958 death of cancer at age 37 eliminated her from the nominations for the Nobel candidacy. She and Wilkins' research determined the structure of the DNA molecule in the early 1950s at King's College in London. Franklin's x-ray diffraction images were important in Crick and Watson's eventual unlocking in 1953 of the mystery, a long spiral with twin threads. Born Francis Harry Compton Crick, the elder of two sons, his brother became a physician in New Zealand. He studied physics at University College, London, graduating with a Bachelor in Science Degree in 1937, but his education was interrupted by World War II in 1938. During the war, he joined an outstanding group of scientists to study, create new designs, and build underwater mines for the British Admiralty. In 1947 he left the Admiralty to study biology. Since his close friend Wilkins was a student at King's College, he submitted an application but it was rejected. With financial support from his family and a scholarship from the Medical Research Council, he entered Cambridge, while working at the Strangeways Research Laboratory, studying cytoplasm. In 1949, he joined the Medical Research Council Unit, which was housed in the Cavendish Laboratory Cambridge, working with Max Perutz, the 1962 Nobel Prize recipient in Chemistry. During this time, he learned about biology, organic chemistry and crystallography from some of the world's greatest scientists. In 1950 he became a research student for the second time, after being accepted as a member of Caius College in Cambridge. In late 1951, he first collaborated with Watson. To find the answer to their research was becoming a competition between England and the United States, as well as in England between different laboratories. While isolating the double-helix structure, he studied and learned from other's mistakes, teaching himself. Using Franklin's photo #51, he and Watson developed, on the second try, a model for a helical structure of DNA on February 28, 1953, which they published in "Nature" on April 25, 1953. For this model, they received the Nobel Prize. At the time of their discovery, he was a 35-year-old with only a bachelor's in biology degree, and Watson was a twenty-three-year-old with a PhD. He earned a Ph.D. in 1954 on a thesis entitled "X-ray Diffraction: Polypeptides and Proteins." At this point, he relocated to the United States for a position at Brooklyn Polytechnic in New York. During the academic year 1953 to 1954, he was on leave of absence at the Protein Structure Project of the Brooklyn Polytechnic. During this time, he lectured twice, as a Visiting Professor, at Harvard University and visited other laboratories in the United States. After a short time in New York, he returned to Cambridge, staying until 1976. In 1960 he became a nonresident fellow at Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and in 1977, after a year's sabbatical, he joined the Salk Institute's faculty. At the same time, he became adjunct professor at the University of California at San Diego. By the 1980s, he had changed his interest to neuroscience. In 1988 he published his autobiography, "What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery." Besides the Nobel Prize, he received many awards and honors including the Royal and Copley medals of the Royal Society in 1972 and 1975 and the Order of Merit on November 27, 1991; he refused an offer of a CBE in 1963, yet was often called "Sir Crick." He was elected an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was made a Fellow of University College. He was also a Fellow of Churchill College in Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. After formally retiring years earlier, he was still "working" in 1993, which marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Watson-Crick hypothesis. The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture was established in 2003 following an endowment by his former colleague, Sydney Brenner, joint recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Crick died after being diagnosed with colon cancer, and his remains were cremated and scattered in the Pacific Ocean. He married twice. With his first wife, he had a son and with his second wife, two daughters. In his honor, The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical research center in London, which was established in 2010 and opened in 2016, having 1,250 scientists and a $100 million budget.