Review of the BBC film Race for the Double Helix

            Life Story: The Race for the Double Helix is focused on the story of James Watson and Francis Crick in their discovery of the structure of DNA. Watson is an American scientist working at Cambridge along side Crick, whose main thesis is on hemoglobin. At the same time, Maurice Wilkins in Kings College is dedicating his studies to finding the structure of DNA when Rosalind Franklin transfers from Paris to do x-ray crystallography on DNA. While Wilkins and Franklin were supposed to be working on their research together, competition broke out between the two of them, with Franklin believing Wilkins is trying to take credit for her work while also not taking her seriously as a female scientist.

            Watson and Crick are constantly reprimanded for their enthusiasm on DNA stating that they should be working on their post-grad research and leave DNA to the experts already working the field. This does not stop them, however, as they search out any scrap of information they can get form other scientists, and sometimes, by any means necessary. The biggest focus is finding out how many chains are in a strand of DNA and its three-dimensional shape. Rosalind Franklin’s x-rays begin to show prominent forms of a helix, but she dismisses the idea because she wants to look from every method to find out why it is the shape it is. Maurice Wilkins sees this as a personal attack because his goal has always been DNA and her x-rays prove his theories.

            Watson attends a hearing where Franklin states her findings on the B form of DNA and brings this information back to Crick. This fuels them to begin building their own model based on this little information. The model was a failure, however, and they were once again dismissed and told to go back to their work. Later, Watson and Crick learn of the rough percentages of adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine in DNA and try to figure out how these could fit together. In their words, it should be “pretty.” However, this still leaves them puzzled on how the bases would fit together and how they are being held together. No one seems to agree on bond types or arrangement.

Rosalind Franklin, while keeping her findings to herself, figures out the two chain DNA and phosphate backbone. There was a piece of information she missed that Crick was able to figure out how to use her work to build their model. She leaves out a C2 section, which is a dyad, or anti-parallel fibers. Crick used two sharpened pencils to show that DNA is anti-parallel. He demonstrated how both pointing in the same direction makes the pattern repeat too early, but if they are running opposite and symmetrical, then the chain will have to turn to make its helical structure before it begins repeating. Anti-parallel refers to the direction of the DNA strands with the 5’ phosphate facing the 3’ hydroxy group. The two strands running anti-parallel allows for the base pairs to fit with the orientation of the sugar molecule.

            Watson and Crick are still fast at work trying to get all the pieces of the model to fit together while Rosalind departs from her research position, leaving Maurice the hope of inheriting her findings so that he could be the one to discover the structure. While placing the pieces of the puzzle of sugars and bases, Jerry Donahue takes note of Watson’s attempt at pairing the bases and notes that the keto form would allow the pairs to align instead of the enol form, moving a hydrogen from an OH to another carbon. Watson makes cutouts of the molecules and starts to rotate pieces until he gets them to align and has the department approve a building of another model. Watson and Crick had finally succeeded at determining the structure of DNA much to the chagrin of Wilkins and Franklin. In the end, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their discovery. Franklin, unfortunately, passed before the prize was awarded.