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James Watson, the American biochemist who has died at the age of 97, was responsible with Francis Crick of the UK for the most important biological discovery of the 20th century: the double helix structure of DNA, the molecule that carries genetic information.
美国生物化学家詹姆斯•沃森(James Watson)日前逝世，享年97岁。他与英国科学家弗朗西斯•克里克(Francis Crick)共同揭示了20世纪最重大的生物学发现：DNA的双螺旋结构——即这种携带遗传信息的分子的结构。
During their two frantic years together at Cambridge university’s Cavendish Laboratory between 1951 and 1953, the brash and virtually unknown newcomers beat several famous scientists in the race to determine the shape of DNA.
在1951年至1953年于剑桥大学卡文迪许实验室(Cavendish Laboratory)共同度过的两年紧张岁月里，这两位张扬且几乎籍籍无名的新来者抢在多位著名科学家之前，率先揭示了DNA的结构。
Although nothing in his subsequent career could match the impact of the double helix discovery, Watson went on to make a distinguished long-term contribution to genetics and cancer research. However the professor’s personal reputation was tarnished by a growing tendency to make sexist and racist comments in later life.
虽然后续职业生涯中再无成就能比肩双螺旋的发现所带来的影响，沃森仍在遗传学和癌症研究方面作出了长期而卓著的贡献。不过，这位教授在晚年愈发发表性别歧视和种族主义言论，个人声誉因此受损。
Watson directed Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state from 1968 to 1994, building it up from an obscure and impoverished genetics lab into a wealthy and world famous centre for molecular biology. The lab confirmed his death on Friday. He also led the US Human Genome project, the effort to decode all genetic information, from 1989 to 1992.
1968年至1994年间，沃森在纽约州的冷泉港实验室(Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)担任主任，将这一默默无闻、资金拮据的遗传学实验室打造为富有且享誉全球的分子生物学中心。实验室于周五证实他已去世。他还在1989年至1992年领导了美国人类基因组计划，这是一项解码全部遗传信息的努力。
James Dewey Watson was born into a modest middle-class family of Irish Catholic immigrants in Chicago on April 6, 1928. Radio audiences heard an early flash of his genius when he appeared on the popular Quiz Kids show aged 12.
詹姆斯•杜威•沃森(James Dewey Watson)于1928年4月6日出生在芝加哥一个出身普通的爱尔兰天主教移民中产家庭。12岁时，他登上热门节目《智力儿童问答》，让广播听众首次见识到他的天赋。
He enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago at the age of 15, and completed his PhD (on a type of virus called phage) at Indiana University in 1950.
他15岁进入芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)攻读本科，并于1950年在印第安纳大学(Indiana University)完成博士学位（研究对象为一种称为噬菌体的病毒）。
The crewcut American “postdoc” arrived at Cambridge at the age of 23. There he quickly converted the 35-year-old Crick to his enthusiasm for solving the structure of DNA and, although both men were supposed to be working on other research projects, they devoted most of their energy to it.
这位留着平头的美国“博士后”在23岁时抵达剑桥。在那里，他很快把35岁的克里克也带入了他对破解DNA结构的热情之中；尽管两人按理都应从事其他研究项目，他们还是把大部分精力都投入到了这件事上。
“Jim and I hit it off immediately,” Crick recalled, “partly because our interests were astonishingly similar and partly because a certain youthful arrogance, a ruthlessness and an impatience with sloppy thinking came naturally to both of us.”
“我和吉姆（詹姆斯的昵称）一见如故，”克里克回忆道，“一方面是因为我们的兴趣惊人地相似，另一方面则是因为一种年轻时特有的傲气、果断，以及对草率思考的不耐，都对我们而言再自然不过。”
Watson’s highly personal book The Double Helix, published in 1968, showed how unorthodox the pair’s methods were. Much of their laboratory time was stolen from their official research projects. Crick and Watson were essentially theoreticians, not experimenters — the observations on which they based their structure were sometimes obtained by subterfuge from other scientists, particularly Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins and Raymond Gosling at King’s College London.
沃森于1968年出版的高度个人化著作《双螺旋》揭示了两人的方法何其非同寻常。他们在实验室的许多时间都是从官方研究项目中“挪”来的。克里克和沃森本质上是理论家而非实验者——他们据以建立结构的一些观测结果，有时是通过曲线手段从其他科学家那里获得的，尤其是来自伦敦国王学院(King's College London)的罗莎琳德•富兰克林(Rosalind Franklin)、莫里斯•威尔金斯(Maurice Wilkins)和雷蒙德•戈斯林(Raymond Gosling)。
If Crick and Watson had not worked together, the structure of DNA would no doubt have been elucidated in the 1950s by another scientific group working on the subject. But the boldness with which Crick and Watson discovered the double helix and presented its genetic consequences to the world made a big impact on the subsequent development of molecular biology.
如果克里克和沃森没有合作，毫无疑问，1950年代从事这一课题的其他科研团队也会阐明DNA的结构。但克里克和沃森发现双螺旋并向世人阐释其遗传学意义时所表现出的大胆，使这一成果对分子生物学此后的发展产生了巨大影响。
As the biologist Sir Peter Medawar wrote in his review of The Double Helix: “The great thing about Watson and Crick’s discovery was its completeness, its finality.” A “piecemeal” solution would not have lit the way for future genetics research in the way Crick and Watson actually did.
正如生物学家彼得•梅达瓦尔(Peter Medawar)在其对《双螺旋》的书评中所写：“沃森和克里克的发现之伟大，在于其完整性与终结性。”一种“零碎的”解决方案不可能像克里克和沃森的实际工作那样，为后续的遗传学研究指明方向。
Their rivals accepted almost immediately that the double helix had to be the right answer. Its immediate attraction was that it looked elegant, with two chains intertwined like spiral staircases. More importantly, it fitted the available evidence.
他们的对手几乎立刻就承认，双螺旋一定是正确答案。它的直接吸引力在于外观优雅，如同两条链交缠成螺旋阶梯。更重要的是，它与已有证据相吻合。
The huge DNA model that Crick and Watson built hurriedly by hand in the Cavendish Lab explained how genes could replicate, as the two spirals uncoiled and each acted as a template for the formation of a new chain. It suggested how genetic information might be coded: the sequence of chemical units (known as bases) along the chains would determine the precise structure of the proteins made by each individual. And it interpreted genetic mutations in terms of changes in these bases.
克里克和沃森在卡文迪许实验室匆忙手工搭建的巨大DNA模型，解释了基因如何复制：两条螺旋解开，各自充当模板形成新的链。它还提出了遗传信息的编码方式：链上化学单元（即碱基）的序列决定了个体所合成蛋白质的精确结构。并且，它将遗传突变解释为这些碱基的变化。
Although the collaboration between Crick and Watson had been so rewarding, they split up soon after making their great discovery. While Crick remained in Cambridge, Watson returned to the US, first to the California Institute of Technology and then in 1955 to Harvard University where he set up a molecular biology lab.
尽管克里克与沃森的合作收获颇丰，他们在取得这一重大发现后不久便分道扬镳。克里克留在剑桥，而沃森则回到美国，先到加州理工学院(California Institute of Technology)，随后于1955年前往哈佛大学(Harvard University)并建立了一间分子生物学实验室。
Watson shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 with Crick and Wilkins.
1962年，沃森与克里克和威尔金斯共同获得诺贝尔生理学或医学奖。
In 1968, Watson, by this stage well known for his overt interest in “pretty girls”, married Elizabeth Lewis, an undergraduate at Radcliffe, Harvard’s women’s college. They had two sons, Rufus and Duncan.
1968年，沃森已因公开迷恋“漂亮女孩”而知名，他与哈佛大学女子学院拉德克利夫学院的本科生伊丽莎白•刘易斯(Elizabeth Lewis)结婚。他们育有两个儿子，鲁弗斯和邓肯。
Watson’s Cambridge experience had made him an enthusiastic Anglophile. He visited Britain frequently and gave Cold Spring Harbor the atmosphere of an English country estate as well as an international laboratory.
在剑桥的经历使沃森成为一位热情的英国文化爱好者。他频繁造访英国，并让冷泉港既带有英式乡间庄园的氛围，又具备国际化实验室的气息。
He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Human Genome Project from the moment it was proposed in the mid-1980s as a $3bn international effort to decipher all human DNA. But his leadership of the project’s US arm ended acrimoniously after three years in 1992.
自上世纪80年代中期提出将其作为一项耗资30亿美元的国际计划以破译全部人类DNA之时起，他就热情支持人类基因组计划。但他对该项目美国部分的领导在三年后的1992年以不欢而散告终。
Watson resigned after clashing with his boss Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health, over issues including researchers’ involvement in private biotechnology companies and the patenting of newly discovered genes. He was concerned that traditional collaboration and the free exchange of scientific information were being undermined by excessive enthusiasm for filing patents and cashing in on relatively minor discoveries.
沃森因就研究人员参与私营生物技术公司、为新发现的基因申请专利等问题与其上司——国立卫生研究院(National Institutes of Health)院长伯纳丁•希利(Bernadine Healy)——发生冲突而辞职。他担心，传统合作与科学信息的自由交流正被对申请专利、从相对次要的发现中牟利的过度热情所侵蚀。
But Watson remained closely involved with the project up to the publication in February 2001 of the first draft of the 3bn letters of the human genetic code.
但直到2001年2月，人类基因组30亿个字母的首份草案发表之前，沃森一直密切参与该项目。
In old age Watson, who had always been prone to making provocative comments, said more than once that Black Americans were on average genetically less intelligent than whites. As a result he was ostracised by the scientific establishment.
到了晚年，一向爱发挑衅言论的沃森多次声称，非裔美国人的平均遗传智力低于白人。结果，他遭到科学界的排斥。
The Cold Spring Harbor trustees removed him from all administrative roles at the lab and then in 2020 revoked his emeritus status and severed all connections with him.
冷泉港实验室的理事会将他从实验室的一切行政职务上撤下，随后在2020年取消了他的名誉退休身份，并与他彻底断绝了所有联系。
A car accident in 2018 left Watson with serious memory loss. He lived in seclusion for the rest of his life.
2018年的一场车祸使沃森遭受严重的记忆丧失。此后他与世隔绝，直至生命终结。