The Path to the Double Helix The Discovery of DNA

Perceptive study of the evolution of ideas leading to understanding of genetic "secret of life." Work of Watson, Crick, others.

Robert Olby is Research Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. A historian of 19th- and 20th-century biology, he specializes in genetics and molecular biology. This book is considered a classic and was strongly endorsed by Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA and author of our Foreword.

Frontispiece
Foreword by Francis Crick
Preface
Note on References to Source Material
List of Plates
Introduction
Note to the Introduction (1994)
"Section I From Colloidal Particles to Long-Chain Molecules: Bergmann, Staudinger, Svedberg, Polanyi, Mark, Astbury"
  Chapter 1 The Macromolecule
  Chapter 2 The Ultracentrifuge
  Chapter 3 The Fibre Diagram and the Long-Chain Molecule
  Chapter 4 The Leeds School under Astbury
  Chapter 5 Astbury under Attack
"Section II Nucleic Acids and the Nature of the Hereditary Material: Levene, Caspersson, Garrod, Muller, Darlington, Stanley"
  "Chapter 6 Kossel, Levene and the Tetranucleotide Hypothesis"
  Chapter 7 The Nucleoprotein Theory of the Gene
  Chapter 8 The Physiology of the Gene
  Chapter 9 The Enzyme Theory of Life
  Chapter 10 The Chemistry of Virus-Genes
"Section III Bacterial Transformation, its Nature and Implications: Griffith, Avery, Boivin, Vendrely, Chargaff, Wyatt"
  Chapter 11 Bacterial Transformation
  Chapter 12 The Identity of the Transforming Substance
  Chapter 13 Support for Avery
  Chapter 14 Base Ratios
"Section IV Intellectual Migrations: Delbrück, Schrödinger, Bernal, Perutz, Pauling, Watson and Crick"
  Chapter 15 Physicists in Biology: The Informational School
  Chapter 16 Physicists and Chemists in Biology: The Structural School
  "Chapter 17 Pauling, Caltech and the a-Helix"
  Chapter 18 Watson and Crick
"Section V Hunting for the Helix: Wilkins, Gosling, Furberg, Franklin, Pauling, Watson and Crick"
  Chapter 19 DNA as a Single- or Multiple-Strand Helix
  Chapter 20 DNA as a Trip Helix
  Chapter 21 DNA as a Double Helix
  Chapter 22 Conclusion
Postscript (1994)
Bibliography
Index