Obit James Watson
FILE - President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Fortov, right, returns a Nobel prize medal which was sold at auction to a Russian businessman, to U.S. Nobel laureate, biologist James Watson in the Russian Academy of Sciences, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, June 17, 2015.
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Scientist James Watson, who shared a Nobel prize for helping discover the double-helix shape of the DNA molecule, has died. He was 97. His death was announced by his former research lab. Watson also helped guide efforts to map the human genome. But he was widely condemned for racist remarks later on and left his job as chancellor of the prestigious Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Watson shared a 1962 Nobel Prize with collaborator Francis Crick and scientist Maurice Wilkins for discovering in 1953 that DNA was shaped like a long, gently twisting ladder. Knowing the structure of DNA was key to figuring out how the genetic material works.