James Watson, Who Helped Discover DNA’s Double-Helix Structure, Dies at 97

Updat­ed on Novem­ber 7, 2025 — 05:27 PM EST

Cold Spring Har­bor Lab­o­ra­to­ry, where Dr. James Dewey Wat­son spent much of his career, con­firmed the pass­ing of the pio­neer­ing Amer­i­can geneti­cist on Novem­ber 7. He was 97.

James Wat­son, one of the key fig­ures behind the dis­cov­ery of DNA’s dou­ble-helix struc­ture — a rev­e­la­tion that changed the course of mod­ern sci­ence — died ear­li­er this week on Long Island after a brief ill­ness, his fam­i­ly shared. He passed away peace­ful­ly under hos­pice care, sur­round­ed by loved ones.

Born in Chica­go in 1928, Wat­son ded­i­cat­ed his life to under­stand­ing the fun­da­men­tal code of life. His ground­break­ing work along­side Fran­cis Crick and Mau­rice Wilkins unveiled the ele­gant dou­ble helix — the twist­ing lad­der-like struc­ture of DNA — and earned the trio the 1962 Nobel Prize in Phys­i­ol­o­gy or Med­i­cine. Their dis­cov­ery laid the foun­da­tion for decades of sci­en­tif­ic advance­ment in genet­ics, med­i­cine, and biotech­nol­o­gy.

Reflect­ing on that momen­tous achieve­ment, Wat­son once said, “Fran­cis Crick and I made the dis­cov­ery of the cen­tu­ry — that was pret­ty clear. There was no way we could have fore­seen the explo­sive impact of the dou­ble helix on sci­ence and soci­ety.”

At Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, where he taught and researched for many years, Wat­son helped demon­strate the exis­tence of mes­sen­ger RNA — a find­ing that would lat­er become essen­tial to under­stand­ing how genet­ic infor­ma­tion is trans­lat­ed into life. He also played an influ­en­tial role in the ear­ly stages of the Human Genome Project, guid­ing its first years and inspir­ing sci­en­tists and pol­i­cy­mak­ers to invest in unlock­ing the human genet­ic code.

Watson’s curios­i­ty and deter­mi­na­tion extend­ed far beyond the lab­o­ra­to­ry. His 1968 mem­oir, The Dou­ble Helix, offered a rare and can­did look into the human side of dis­cov­ery — the excite­ment, rival­ry, and per­se­ver­ance that fuel sci­en­tif­ic break­throughs.

Through­out his long career, Dr. Wat­son received numer­ous hon­ors, includ­ing the Pres­i­den­tial Medal of Free­dom from Pres­i­dent Ger­ald Ford and the Nation­al Medal of Sci­ence from Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton. His con­tri­bu­tions to biol­o­gy, edu­ca­tion, and genet­ic research have left a pro­found mark on the world.

Beyond sci­ence, James Wat­son was a hus­band and father. He mar­ried Eliz­a­beth Lewis in 1968, and togeth­er they raised two sons — a fam­i­ly that remained a cen­tral part of his life even as his dis­cov­er­ies reshaped our under­stand­ing of life itself.

Dr. Watson’s lega­cy endures in every strand of DNA we study and in every med­ical break­through that traces its ori­gins back to that fate­ful dis­cov­ery in the 1950s. His life reminds us that curios