CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — James D. Watson, the pioneering molecular biologist whose 1953 co‑discovery of the DNA double‑helix reshaped science, died this week at 97, according to the Associated Press .

Watson, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for revealing how DNA stores and transfers genetic information, a breakthrough that unlocked fields from gene therapy to forensic science, AP said.

Born in Chicago on April 6, 1928, Watson entered the University of Chicago at 15 and earned a Ph.D. in zoology by age 22, PBS reported . His curiosity in genetics led him to Cambridge, England, where he and Crick built what became the iconic model of DNA’s double strand structure, the foundation of modern molecular biology, PBS add

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