Nobel laureate for DNA work dies at age 88

LONDON – Maurice Wilkins, “the third man” in the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, died Tuesday in London. He was 88.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 along with James Watson and Francis Crick for his role in what is considered one of the most important discoveries in human history.

Wilkins devised an X-ray technique that he used to take the first picture of DNA, which led to Watson and Crick’s work building a hypothetical model for DNA’s structure. Wilkins then spent seven years proving that Watson and Crick’s theory was correct.

“Maurice Wilkins was a central figure in one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century – the double helix of DNA – but his generosity and extreme modesty allowed others to share the prize,” said British popular science writer Matt Ridley, author of “Genome” and “Nature vs. Nurture.”