Unravelling the Double Helix

by Gareth Williams

  186Randall acquired a research assistant: Ibid, pp. 49–50.

  187doing ‘interesting things’: Ibid, p. 49.

  187a slow start: Ibid, p. 52.

  187Randall’s new project: Ibid, pp. 62–3.

  188assisted by Harry Boot: Ibid, pp. 63–4; Wilkins 1987, p. 509.

  188The inspiration for the cavity resonance magnetron: Ibid, p. 509.

  188immediately showed promise: Wilkins 2003, p. 69; Boot and Randall (above), pp. 725–6.

  188Hundreds of prototypes later: Phelps (above), pp. 100–9.

  188‘the most valuable cargo’: quotation from James Phinney Baxter III, Official Historian of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. In Baxter J.P. Scientists against Time. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1946, p. 142.

  189the middle of three children: Wilkins 2003, pp. 7–19. Ulysses reference, p. 5.

  189The new baby was christened: Ibid, p. 6.

  189fell out with ‘the authorities’: Ibid, p. 12.

  189their ‘Worship of the Hills’: Ibid, p. 21.

  189the imaginary Radium Island: Drawn in a school exercise book, Wylde Green College. Wilkins Archives, King’s College, K/PP178/1/1. 189 ‘almost religious’ reverence: Wilkins 2003, p. 24.

  189also fascinated by optics: Ibid, p. 28.

  189‘buildings like citadels’: Document, ‘Rose interviews’, 1989, p. 1. Wilkins Archives, King’s College, K/PP178/1/6.

  189Best of all were the tutorials: Wilkins 2003, pp. 33–5.

  190The first dozen pages: Notebook, ‘Physics Part II’. In Wilkins Archives, King’s College, K/PP178/1/7.

  190‘the most significant aspect’: Document, ‘Rose interviews’ (above), p. 1; Wilkins 2003, p. 35.

  190led locally by Bernal: Wilkins 2003, p. 39–40; Wilkins M.H.F. Recollections of the 1930s. In: Rose H., Rose S., eds. Science at the Crossroads. A socialist view of science, technology and medicine. Spring 1982; 51:10–11.

  190a regular science feature: e.g. Johns J.J. Is there life on the Planets? Challenge, 23 Sept 1937. London: Young Communists’ League.

  190‘Scholarships, not battleships’: Wilkins 2003, p. 42 and Plate 12 (which shows MHFW at an anti-war demonstration in London, 1936).

  190The Cambridge Scientists’ Anti-War Group: Wilkins 2003, pp. 35–8; Wilkins, Recollections of the 1930s (above), pp. 10–1.

  190‘popular science for a left-wing youth paper’: Wilkins 2003, p. 47; Wilkins, Document ‘Rose interviews’ (above), p. 2.

  190a bout of depression: Wilkins 2003, pp. 45, 47–8; Wilkins, Document ‘Rose interviews’ (above), p. 2.

  190‘a small, upright man’: Wilkins 2003, p. 50.

  190a sack of uranium oxide: Wilkins, Recollections of the 1930s (above), p. 11.

  191making luminous collars: Wilkins 2003, p. 62.

  191Wilkins’s task: Ibid, pp. 52–3, 62–3.

  191three masterly papers: Wilkins M.H.F., Randall J.T. The phosphorescence of various solids. Proc Roy Soc A 1945; 184:347–64; Wilkins M.H.F., Randall J.T. Phosphorescence and electron traps. I. The study of trap distributions; and II. The interpretation of long-period phosphorescence. Proc Roy Soc B 1945; 184:366–89, and 390–407.

  191his work was described as ‘brilliant’: Neville Mott, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Cambridge. Letter from Mott to JTR, 3 Nov 1940. John Randall Papers, Churchill College, RNDL 1/2/1.

  191‘very disturbed’: Wilkins 2003, pp. 52, 66.

  191used to meet for lunch: Ibid, pp. 63, 69. Wilkins 1987, p. 509.

  192‘a specious feasibility’: Gowing M. Britain and atomic energy, 1939–1945. London: Macmillan, 1964, p. 109.

  192the ‘Frisch-Peierls memorandum’: Phelps (above), pp. 281–2. The memorandum is available at: https://web.stanford.edu/class/history5n/FPmemo.pdf.

  192an array of bright steel tubes: Wilkins 2003, pp. 76–7.

  192decided on high: Ibid, pp. 78–82.

  193Wilkins now enjoyed a sandwich: Ibid, p. 85.

  193quickly ‘became close’: Ibid, pp. 80–1, 85–6.

  193gave him a book: Ibid, pp. 83–4. The book was Schrodinger E. What is Life? (1944). Schrodinger shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac, for ‘the discovery of a new productive form of atomic theory’.

  193the distillate of lectures: Olby R. Schrödinger’s problem: What is Life? J Hist Biol 1971; 4:119–48; Cobb, p. 11.

  193‘aperiodic crystals’: Wilkins 2003, p. 84.

  193‘remarkably like the luminescent crystals’: Ibid, p. viii.

  194high and dry: letters in the John Randall Papers show many fruitless attempts between 1940 and 1942 by JTR to persuade the Admiralty’s Patent Office to file a patent. cf. Letter from US Patent Office (ref. 685/41) on 2 Feb 1943, requiring JTR to respond to a claim that James B. Fisk had invented ‘a novel form of resonator’ which was in essence the Randall-Boot magnetron. Letters in John Randall Papers, Churchill College, RNDL/1/2/8.

  194he accepted an offer: Wilkins 1987, p. 510.

  194a pessimistic update: Letter from HAH Boot to JTR, 10 Jan 1945. John Randall Papers, RNDL/1/2/9.

  194offered him the post of lecturer: Wilkins 1987, p. 511; Wilkins 2003, p. 83.

  194‘I like rain’: Ibid, pp. 85–6.

  194a message from Ruth: Ibid, p. 86; Letter from MHFW to JTR, 2 Aug 1945, John Randall Papers, RNDL/1/6.

  195the flash was bright enough: original report in Albuquerque Journal, 17 July 1945, Explosives blast jolts wide area’, followed up the offical story that a (conventional) munitions dump had blown up. The subject was Georgia Green, who had lost the sight in one eye as a child. See The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1993, pp. 63–7.

  195‘joyful sense of achievement’: Wilkins 2003, p. 85.

  195During the Blitz: Brown A: how to distinguish a dud, pp. 180–2; Haldane’s clerihew, p. 182; choosing Coventry, pp. 190–1; the afternoon of D-Day, pp. 248–50; jungles of Ceylon, pp. 259–62.

  196As a pacifist: Hall, p. 49.

  196His main contribution: Ibid, pp. 104–5.

  196requiring Florence Bell: Ibid, p. 105.

  196Bell then married: Ibid, p. 105.

  196nothing of interest: Buck J.B., Melland A.M. Methods for isolating, collecting and orienting salivary gland chromosomes for diffraction analyses. J Heredity 1942; 33:173–84. X-rayed during an air-raid: p. 181.

  196died quietly in his flat: Andrade & Lonsdale, pp. 276–300.

  196‘certain ambiguous advances’: Ibid, p. 290.

  197an unusual paper: Eichling. This article appeared in J Heredity immediately after the issue containing the report by Buck and Melland of the chromosomes that were X-rayed by Astbury.

  197announced in London: Harland.

  198his 500-page book: Bernal J.D.. The Social Function of Science. London: George Routledge & Co., 1939. Relegated to a footnote: pp. 235–7. Lysenko is listed in the Index; Mendel is not.

  Chapter 16: Dreams of geneticists

  199the ‘US Navy Reserve Research Unit’: Corner, pp. 332, 520–4.

  199a thirty-year-old paediatrician: McCarty 1985 pp. 14–38.

  200tried to save two children: Ibid, p. 40.

  200a paper on sulfapyridine: Ibid, pp. 41–2; Hodes H.L., Stifler W.C., Walker F., McCarty M., Shirley R.G. The use of sulfapyridine in primary pneumococcic pneumonia. Pediatrics 1939; 14:417–46.

  200His other early achievements: McCarty 1985, p. 37.

  200This produced another paper: Ibid, pp. 46–7. McCarty M., Tillett W.S. The inactivating effect of sulfapyridine on the leukotoxic action of benzene. J Exp Med 1941; 74:531–44.

  200‘it would be splendid’: McCarty 1985, pp. 47–9.

  200the Red Seal discourse omitted: Ibid, pp. 49–50.

  201‘It captured my imagination’: Ibid, pp. 122–3.

  201refitting his lab: Ibid, p. 123.

  201‘enthusiastically’ encouraged him: Ibid, pp. 123–4.

  201when the two men shared digs: Ibid, p. 232.

  201symbolically handed own
ership: Ibid, p. 126.

  201McCarty’s first experiment: Ibid, pp. 128–9.

  202wondered about other ways: Ibid, pp. 131–2.

  202Sunday 7 December began unremarkably: Ibid, pp. 130–1.

  202McCarty was protected: Ibid, p. 131.

  202‘stringy mass of fibrous precipitate’: Ibid, p. 132.

  203‘the pivotal discovery’: Joshua Lederberg, quoted in McCarty M. Discovering genes are made of DNA. Nature 2003; 421:406.

  203published nearly forty years after: McCarty 1985.

  203‘tried as best I could’: Ibid, pp. 134, 137.

  203The great Felix Hoppe-Seyler had obtained: Mirsky A.E., Pollister W. Chromosin, a desoxyribose nucleoprotein complex of the cell nucleus. J Gen Physiol 1946; 30:119–20.

  203He isolated ‘plasmosin’: Corner, p. 318.

  203–4 ‘rigorous chemical orientation’: Cohen, p. 4.

  204He attended Harvard: Ibid, pp. 3–6.

  204on how proteins unfold: Ibid, p. 5; Mirsky A.E., Pauling L. On the structure of native, denatured and coagulated proteins. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1936; 22:439–47.

  204a gentle extraction method: Mirsky A.E., Pollister A.W. Nucleoproteins of cell nuclei. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1942; 28:344–52. The paper includes a photograph (Figure 1) of DNA fibres wound around a stick like candy-floss.

  205based on long chains of ‘desoxyribose tetranucleotides’: Ibid, p. 351; McCarty 1985, pp. 143–6.

  205the neglected bottle: Ibid, p. 135.

  205‘By January 1942’: Ibid, p. 134.

  205a milestone experiment: Ibid, pp. 137–8.

  206a massive new ultracentrifuge: Ibid, pp. 138–40.

  206his routine report: Avery O.T. Report to the Board of Research Directors, Rockefeller Institute, April 1942, pp. 128–53.

  206‘increasing tempo’: McCarty 1985, p. 141.

  206the group upstairs: Ibid, pp. 145–8.

  207After extraction and purification: Ibid, pp. 152–4.

  207extraordinarily potent: Ibid, pp. 159–60.

  207his last annual report: Ibid, pp. 154–5; Avery O.T. Report to the Board of Research Directors, Rockefeller Institute, April 1943, pp. 143–53.

  208‘Biologists, especially geneticists’: Ibid, p. 153.

  208the ‘vital importance’: Leathes J.B. Function and design. Science 1926; 64:387–94.

  209Rivers’s biography: Benison S, Tom Rivers. Relections on a Life in Medicine and Science. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1967.

  209sat down to write to Roy: McCarty 1985, pp. 156–9. Transcript is at https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/ResourceMetadata/CCBDBF.

  210the trio made a ‘pilgrimage’: Ibid, pp. 162–3.

  210‘the most interesting and portentous’: Ibid, pp. 164–7.

  211Nonetheless, he presented: Ibid, pp. 169–70.

  211strangely unsettled: Ibid, p. 170.

  211a more dramatic end: Ibid, pp. 170–1; Olby 1974, p. 205.

  212The twenty-page paper: Avery, MacLeod & McCarty.

  212When the reprints arrived: McCarty 1985, p. 171.

  212acquired a new identity: Downie, p. 2.

  213refused point-blank: Méthot, p. 319.

  213not the worst night of the Blitz: see Bombsight.org for daily maps of bomb damage during the Luftwaffe bombardment.

  213From the ruins: Letter from Alvin Coburn to Joshua Lederberg, 19 Nov 1965. Cited in Coburn.

  213conspicuously mourned: Anonymous. Obituary. William McDonald Scott (1884–1941). J Pathol 1941; 53:318–24.

  213a joint obituary: Anonymous. Obituary. F. Griffith MB and W.M. Scott MD. Medical Officers, Ministry of Health. Brit Med J 1941; 1:691.

  213Only the Lancet: Anonymous. Obituary. Frederick Griffith. Lancet 3 May 1941.

  214a man with his dog: Letter from Alvin Coburn, above.

  Chapter 17: Tidying up

  215Burnet initially wondered: Burnet M. Changing Patterns: An Atypical Biography. London: Heinemann, 1968, p. 81.

  215Coburn took the snapshot: Letter from Alvin Coburn to Joshua Lederberg, 19 Nov 1965. Cited in Coburn.

  215Avery arrived for lunch: Ibid; Coburn, pp. 625–7.

  216‘Dear Fess’: Letter from Alvin Coburn to Oswald Avery, 25 May 1943.

  216‘the principal public sceptic’: McCarty 1985, p. 148; Judson, p. 40.

  216The criticisms were repeated: Mirsky & Pollister, pp. 133–5.

  217‘never had a clear understanding’: McCarty 1985, p. 148.

  217McCarty got rid of histones: Ibid, p. 172–81; Olby 1974, pp. 192–6. 217 McCarty isolated DNase: McCarty 1985, p. 178–87; McCarty M. Purification and properties of deoxyribonuclease isolated from beef pancreas. J Gen Physiol 1946; 29:123–39; McCarty M., Avery O.T. Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types. II. Effects of deoxyribonuclease. J Exp Med 1946; 83:89–96.

  217‘completely aloof’: Dubos 1956, p. 41.

  218‘not as broadly informed’: Ibid, p. 42.

  218‘authentic cases of induction’: Dobzhansky T. Genetics and the Origin of Species, 2nd edn. New York: Columbia Univ Press, 1941, pp. 48–50.

  218Muller was also unpersuaded: Muller H. Pilgrim Trust Lecture, 1946: The Gene. Proc Roy Soc B 1947; 134:1–37.

  218Avery’s retirement: McCarty 1985, p. 182.

  218Avery was gloomy: Ibid, pp. 194–6; Dubos 1976, pp. 154–5.

  218McCarty discovered: McCarty 1985, pp. 280–1.

  219his prize lecture: Ibid, pp. 204–6. McCarty M. Chemical nature and biological specificity of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types. Bacteriol Rev 1946; 10:63–71.

  219‘genes were made of DNA’: McCarty M. Discovering genes are made of DNA. Nature 2003; 421:406.

  219Neither did Tom Rivers: McCarty 1985, pp. 207, 209–10.

  219McCarty went with Harriett Taylor: Ibid, pp. 210–2.

  219a bullish line: McCarty M., Taylor H.E., Avery O.T. Biochemical studies of environmental factors essential in transformation of pneumococcal types. Cold Spring Harbor Symp Quant Biol 1946; 11:177–83.

  219buttonholed afterwards: McCarty 1985, p. 211.

  220His personal account: Ibid, p. 212.

  220In early 1949: Ibid, pp. 225–6.

  220other characteristics of pneumococci: Taylor H.E. Additive effects of certain transforming agents from some variants of pneumococci. J Exp Med 1949; 89:399–424.

  220the rest of her career: Ravin AW. Harriet Ephrussi-Taylor, https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/BBGBDU.pdf and /BBCTN.pdf.

  220great energy: Olby 1974, p. 197.

  221presented his findings: Ibid, p. 203. Hotchkiss R.D. Etudes chimiques sur le facteur transformant du pneumocoque. Colloq Intern Centre Natl Rech Sci (Paris) 1949; 8:57–65.

  221a nice thank-you telegram: Bearn A.G. Oswald T. Avery and the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. Persp Biol Med 1996; 39:553. See also Dale H. Address of the President, Anniversary Meeting, 30 Nov 1945. Proc Roy Soc B 1946; 133:123–4.

  221decided to present the medal: Dubos 1976, p. 168. As reported by Dr Edgar Todd, who accompanied Dale.

  221closed behind him: Ibid, p. 169.

  221In Nashville: Biographical details at https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/CC/.

  222the same memento: Coburn, pp. 627–8.

  222Taylor was so excited: McCarty 1985, p. 196.

  222such ‘excruciating pleasure’: Joshua Lederberg, diary entry, 20 Jan 1945. https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/CCAAAB.pdf.

  222a busy biochemistry research lab: Chargaff 1978, pp. 82–4.

  222‘heralded the opening’: Burnet M. Changing Patterns: An Atypical Biography. London: Heinemann, 1968, p. 81.

  222One of the many letters: Letter from William Astbury to Oswald Avery, 18 Jan 1945. Astbury Papers, MS419, Box E152.

  223‘my secretary, my personal assistant’: Hall, p. 105.

  223a letter from A.V. Hill: Ibid, pp. 118–9. Letter from A.V. Hill to William Astbury, 19 Jan 1945. Astbury Papers, MS419, Box G1
6/28.

  223galvanised Astbury: Hall, p. 118.

  223The University Council agreed: Ibid, pp. 119–21.

  224his showcase Croonian Lecture: Astbury W.T. Croonian Lecture: On the structure of biological fibres and the problem of muscle. Proc Roy Soc B 1947; 134:303–28.

  224excite the interest: Hall, p. 121.

  224a regretful letter: Letter from Sir Edward Mellanby to William Astbury, 12 March 1946. Astbury Papers MS419, Box G13.

  224the ‘lab boy’: Hall, pp. 144–5.

  224Astbury attended a meeting: Judson, pp. 237–8. Astbury W.T. X-ray studies of nucleic acids. Symp Soc Exp Biol 1947; 1:66–76.

  225‘putting new life’: Wilkins 1987, p. 510.

  225an odd experiment: Ibid, p. 511.

  225ideas were tumbling out: Ibid, p. 511. The suggestion to look at cuttlefish sperm (later one of Randall’s main research themes) came originally from H.N. Barber at the John Innes Institute.

  225the stuff of scientists’ dreams: Letter from A.V. Hill to J.T. Randall, 14 Feb 1946. Randall Papers, RNDL 2/2.

  226‘a bigger scheme for biophysics research’: Letter from J.T. Randall to Sir Alfred Egerton, 26 Feb 1946. Randall Papers, RNDL 2/2/1.

  226The MRC was also hugely impressed: Memo from Sir Edward Mellanby to J.T. Randall, 15 Nov 1946. Randall Papers, RNDL 2/2/1.

  226niggling concern: Wilkins 2003, p. 94.

  226finding the ‘isolation oppressive’: Ibid, p. 95.

  226the policemen closed in: Smith J.H. Alan Nunn May. The Atom Spy and MI5. Malvern, Worcs: Aspect Design, 2012, pp. 61–72.

  227By extraordinary coincidence: Wilkins 2003, p. 97.

  227spent three weeks: Wilkins 1987, p. 546. Their chapter was omitted from the published book because some members of the Rad Lab disputed the origin of the magnetron – ‘to our astonishment and the disgrace of the Americans’, as Randall wrote.

  227an exceptional award: Ibid, p. 505. A 45-page Submission to the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, by Randall, Boot and Sayers for the cavity magnetron, was sent in on 27 July 1948. Randall Papers, RNDL 1/12.

  227a cryptic radio telegram: Radiogram from British Office of Cunard White Star to J.T. Randall, 8 April 1946; letter from Sir Edward Appleton to JTR, 2 April 1946. Randall Papers, RNDL 2/2/1.

  228dinner at the Athenaeum: letter from Sir William Halliday to Randall, 9 May 1946. Randall Papers, RNDL 2/2/1.