Two legends in the modern era of biology (molecular biology) passed away in the past few months; James Watson and David Baltimore. Watson is the co-discovered of DNA helix structure (with Francis Crick) and paved the way for molecular biology as we see now. In addition to DNA double helix discovery (to be precise, making insightful interpretation of the result of DNA helix crystal structure solved by Rosaline Franklin) his lab also contributed to resolving the central role of RNA as a messenger that carry the information encoded in the DNA to translate into proteins. He wrote the Molecular Biology of the Gene, the seminal text book in molecular biology. He also wrote the widely popular book The Double Helix, a first hand behind the scence the commentary of the discovery of double helix. In many ways this book for the first time displayed the real process of scientific discovery (in biomedical research), the description of scientist as humans, the character analysis, the intense competition, the fun of making dscoveries. He also wrote autobiographical book Avoid Boring People, in the format of career advice to scientist in various stages of clibming the academic career. Watson was the first director of the Human Genome Project. In addiotn to these (and probably more) scientific contributions, he also trained a generation of scientists, who in their of right establised new field of research and won Noble prizes and became policy makers in the field. He was a long standing president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and made it into the Mecca of Molecular Biology. Without a doubt he was the most popular, and probably the only celebrity, biomedical scientist of the 20th century. However, some of his socio-political views brought him fair share of notoriety in the 21st centurty. Either way Watsons life was inspiring and educational.
While Watsons discoveries founded the central dogma of molecular biology (DNA to RNA to Proteins), Davild Baltimore's finding challenged that dogma, through the discovery of reverse transcriptase enzymes from Retro viruse. This the enzyme that RNA virus uses to make DNA using RNA as a template. Baltimore shared Nobel Prize with Howard Temin for this dscovery. His lab then went to make several discoveries including, immunoglobulin recombination, NFkb pathway, and made early reports of transcriptional enhancers. Baltimore was also a leader and influencer in biomedical research. He was involved in organizing Asilomar conference, that help to make regulation around recombinant DNA technologies. He was the only person to lead three frontier research institutes in the world. Baltimore was the founder and first director of the Whitehead Institute (MIT), president of the Rockefeller University, NYC and Caltech, Pasadena. Baltimore also trained numerous scientists in his lab who went on to became leaders in their own right.
I feel both inspired and oftern time insufficient when reading about Watson and Baltimore. I am sure that many of my fellow scientists might feel the same way. How can one person touches so many lifes, career and influence the direction of somany research fields. They were the pioneers of their respective fieled in its infancy. They got to contribute to science so much, so fast, which might be improbable in the modern times, where technologies are far advanced and the questions are often time incremetal. They the few of the last titans of the golden era of molecular biology. I feel lucky to be alive in the same era are these peoples and witness their life, the contributions and controversies, as it happen. The gilded age of molecular biology might be over, but the lives of these and many others lived in that era will remain and inspiration for a very long time.
