title: Co-chairman's remarks: before the double helix.
abstract: In the nineteen-thirties and -forties, genes were universally believed to be made of protein. Biochemists met Avery, MacLeod and McCarty's discovery, that the transforming factor of pneumococci consists of DNA, with disbelief, and the notion that this was true of genes took a long time to be generally accepted even after Watson and Crick's discovery of its double helical structure. Until Watson's arrival, Kendrew, Crick and I were interested mainly in solving the structure of proteins, but Watson made us think about the structure of genes which determine protein structure.
authors.affiliation: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Perutz
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000266:history*; D005823:Genetics / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century
chemical_list: D004247:DNA