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"The Impact of Linus Pauling on Molecular Biology." February 28, 1995. Talk delivered at the Pauling Symposium, Oregon State University. A Friendly Rivalry. (1:36)

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Francis Crick: I next noticed Linus' influence when I went to join Max Perutz's lab. Before that I had done a year or so in a tissue culture lab just to get some acquaintance with biology. There, it was clear they were all very conscious of what Linus Pauling was doing, because not many laboratories were using X-ray diffraction in those days, certainly not to try and do protein structures, as Perutz and Kendrew were doing. But even on organic molecules they were not doing so much, and therefore Pauling was a major presence in the background of anything that happened in the lab. There was a friendly rivalry between the group in Cambridge, in the Cavendish lab, and Pauling's lab at Caltech. I say it was friendly because, as you know, science is supposed to be cooperative. There is nevertheless a certain amount of competition, because everybody wants to publish a little sooner than somebody else. It was friendly because, for example, in the office that Jim Watson and I shared, there were several other people, five or six, and one of them was Jerry Donohue who had worked with Linus Pauling and had come to work with us; and a little later, Peter Pauling, who had come to get his doctorate with us.

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Date: February 28, 1995
Genre: video
ID: 1995v.1
Copyright: More Information

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