BIOLOGIST

James Watson

1928 - 2025

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James Dewey Watson (April 6, 1928 – November 6, 2025) was an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he and Francis Crick co-authored an academic paper in Nature proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule, building on research by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling. In 1962, Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". Watson graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 and received his doctorate from Indiana University Bloomington in 1950. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in 86 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 85 in 2024). James Watson is the 5th most popular biologist (up from 12th in 2024), the 61st most popular biography from United States (up from 176th in 2019) and the most popular American Biologist.

James Watson is most famous for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA.

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Among BIOLOGISTS

Among biologists, James Watson ranks 5 out of 1,097. Before him are Charles Darwin, Carl Linnaeus, Gregor Mendel, and Alexander Fleming. After him are Ivan Pavlov, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Ernst Haeckel, Konrad Lorenz, Rosalind Franklin, and Karl Landsteiner.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1928, James Watson ranks 3. Before him are Che Guevara, and John Forbes Nash Jr.. After him are Andy Warhol, Hosni Mubarak, Ennio Morricone, Stanley Kubrick, Ariel Sharon, Noam Chomsky, Eduard Shevardnadze, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Chinghiz Aitmatov. Among people deceased in 2025, James Watson ranks 2. Before him is Pope Francis. After him are David Lynch, José Mujica, Gene Hackman, Claudia Cardinale, Mario Vargas Llosa, Marianne Faithfull, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Boris Spassky, Robert Redford, and Richard Chamberlain.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, James Watson ranks 61 out of 20,380. Before him are John Wilkes Booth (1838), Harry S. Truman (1884), Joan Baez (1941), Howard Hughes (1905), Robert Frost (1874), and Wallis Simpson (1896). After him are Andy Warhol (1928), Bill Clinton (1946), Marlon Brando (1924), Toni Morrison (1931), George R. R. Martin (1948), and Bob Dylan (1941).

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Among BIOLOGISTS In United States

Among biologists born in United States, James Watson ranks 1. After him are George Beadle (1903), Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866), Edward Tatum (1909), George Smith (1941), Barbara McClintock (1902), Rachel Carson (1907), Irwin Rose (1926), Linda B. Buck (1947), Dian Fossey (1932), Clair Cameron Patterson (1922), and Alfred Hershey (1908).

American born Biologists

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