James Watson, DNA pioneer and microbiologist, is to sell his Nobel Prize for discovering the DNA structure, the building block of life, from a report by CNN News. The expected prize of the gold medal will reach as high as $3.5 million in a sale at Christie's in New York on December 4, 2014.
In history, it is the first time that a Nobel Prize will be sold by a still living owner. Watson, who is now 85, was awarded the medal when he discovered the structure of the human DNA alongside co-scientists Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins way back in 1962.
The two scientists namely, Watson and Crick worked hand in hand on identifying the structure of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory in the early 1950s.
According to a statement by Watson in 2013, ""He was the first person I met who I could really talk to," Watson said in 2013. I'd met people, but they didn't share my conviction that only DNA was important." By 1953, the group decided to conclude that DNA consists of twisted strands of molecules mimicking that of a ladder and holding the double helix structure together. In fact, according to him, DNA was his 'only gold rush'.
Their discovery forever revolutionized medicine and physiology. Every study thereafter were based and rooted on their discovery. "Everything we do since then is more or less based on that structure," said Mario Capecchi, professor of genetics and human biology at the University of Utah.
Christie's auction house said that Watson's work is truly one of a kind. Watson, on the other hand, plans to use part of the money that will be raised to fund projects the universities and institutions he has worked with in his career. He is looking forward to making further philanthropic gifts to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, University of Cambridge and Clare College Cambridge.