ABSTRACT
In this chapter the enormous ramifications of the crystal structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) are discussed. The structure of the DNA helix, as published by James Watson and Francis Crick, assisted by information provided by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, suggested that DNA is uniquely suited to undergo duplication. The significance of this conclusion was a culmination of many decades of research that began with the discovery of DNA by Miescher and was accelerated by the experiments of Griffith and Avery, who showed that DNA was the transforming principle and the hereditary material of the cell.
