James D. Watson is chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and one of the discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule. With Dr. Francis Crick he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids.

In 1951 Dr. Watson met Maurice Wilkins and saw for the first time the X-ray diffraction pattern of crystalline DNA, which lead him toward the study of the structural chemistry of nucleic acids and proteins. His major achievement was the discovery of the structure of DNA as a double helix, for which he and Dr. Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize. Other honors that have to come to Watson include the John Collins Warren Prize of the Massachusetts General Hospital, with Crick in 1959; the Eli Lilly Award in Biochemistry, 1959; the Lasker Award, with Crick and Wilkins in 1960; and the Research Corporation Prize, with Crick in 1962.

Watson's subsequent research has focused on the role of RNA in protein synthesis. His present principal collaborator is the theoretical physicist Walter Gilbert, who in Watson's words "has recently learned the excitement of experimental molecular biology."

Dr. Watson is chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is recognized internationally for its educational activities. Its Watson School of Biological Sciences offers an innovative Ph.D. program for a small group of exceptional students. The Laboratory also trains college undergraduates through the Undergraduate Research Program, high school students through the Partners for the Future Program and grade-school children through its Nature Study summer camp. The Laboratory operates the Dolan DNA Learning Center in the village of Cold Spring Harbor, which offers laboratory workshops to science teachers, students, and groups across the nation. Other components of the Laboratory include Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, which publishes five scientific journals and numerous laboratory manuals and books; the Banbury Conference Center in Lloyd Harbor, which hosts specialized meetings for small groups of participants; and the Cancer Genome Research Center in nearby Woodbury.

James D. Watson was born in Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in zoology in 1950 from Indiana University, through a fellowship for graduate study on the effects of hard X-rays on bacteriophage multiplication. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and has been granted foreign membership in the Danish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a consultant to the President's Scientific Advisory Committee.