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Elementary Dr. Watson

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Abstract

J. D. Watson in his book, The Double Helix, blamed J. N. Davidson’s text The biochemistry of nucleic acids for Watson initially using the wrong formulae of the nitrogenous bases in his and F. Crick’s quest for the DNA structure. A closer look at Davidson’s text, however, reveals that most of the structures were correctly drawn the only exception being guanosine represented in the enol form.

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References

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Acknowledgments

Thanks are given to the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Project No. CTQ2009-13129-C02-02), the Spanish MEC (CTQ2007-62113), and the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (Project MADRISOLAR2, Ref. S2009/PPQ-1533) for continuing support. Professor Istvan Hargittai comments and corrections have been invaluable to transform our initial manuscript to its present form. We also thank Drs. Ibon Alkorta, Eric Elguero and the University of Glasgow Archive Service for their help.

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  1. Instituto de Química Médica, CSIC, Juan de la Cierva, 3, E-28006, Madrid, Spain

    José Elguero

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  1. José Elguero
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Correspondence to José Elguero.

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Elguero, J. Elementary Dr. Watson. Struct Chem 23, 297–300 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11224-011-9891-z

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