A selection of primary and secondary source materials that provide deeper context for the issues and events discussed on this site.

Avery, Oswald T., Colin M. MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty. "Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types." Journal of Experimental Medicine 79 (1944): 137-158. View Paper

Brenner, Sydney. My Life in Science. As told to Lew Wolpert. Edited interview with additional material by Errol C. Friedberg and Eleanor Lawrence. London: Science Archive Limited, 2001.

Cairns, John; Stent, Gunther S.; and Watson, James D. Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology. Expanded edition. Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1992.

Chambers, Donald A., ed. "DNA: The Double Helix. Perspective and Prospective at Forty Years." Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 758, 1995.

Chargaff, Erwin. Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature. New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1978.

Chomet, Seweryn (ed). D.N.A. Genesis of a Discovery. London: New-Hemisphere, 1995.

Crick, Francis. What Mad Pursuit? A Personal View of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

de Chadarevian, Soraya. Designs for Life: Molecular Biology after World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Dubos, René J. The Professor, the Institute, and DNA. New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1976.

Eigen, Manfred. Stufen Zum Leben: Die Frühe Evolution im Visier der Molekularbiologie. Munich, Germany: R. Piper, 1987.

Fruton, Joseph S. Proteins, Enzymes, Genes. The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Fuller, Watson. "Who said 'helix'?: Right and wrong in the story of how the structure of DNA was discovered." Nature, vol. 424 (21 August 2003): 876-878.

Hager, Thomas. Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Hershey, Alfred D., and Martha Chase. "Independent Functions of Viral Protein and Nucleic Acid in Growth of Bacteriophage." Journal of General Physiology 36 (1952): 39-56. View Paper

Holmes, Frederick Lawrence. Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA. A History of "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology." New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

Judson, Horace F. The Eighth Day of Creation. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Kauffman, George B. "DNA Structure: Happy 50th Birthday!" Chemical Educator, no. 8 (2003): 219-230.

Kay, Lily E. Who Wrote the Book of Life? A History of the Genetic Code. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Krude, Torsten, ed. DNA: Changing Science and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Lwoff, André and Ullmann, Agnes. Origins of Molecular Biology. A Tribute to Jacques Monod. New York: Academic Press, 1979.

Maddox, Brenda. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

McManus, Chris. Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Morange, Michel. A History of Molecular Biology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Olby, Robert. "Francis Crick, DNA, and the Central Dogma." Dædalus, vol. 99, no. 4 (1970): 938.

----- The Path to the Double Helix. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975.

Pauling, Linus. "Fifty Years of Progress in Structural Chemistry and Molecular Biology." Dædalus, vol. 99, no. 4 (1970): 988.

Portugal, Franklin H. and Cohen, Jack S. A Century of DNA. A History of the Discovery of the Structure and Function of the Genetic Substance. Foreward by Lord Alexander Todd. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977.

Rennie, John. "Celebrating the Genetic Jubilee: A Conversation with James D. Watson." Scientific American, (April 2003): 66-69.

Srinivasan, P.R., Fruton, Joseph S., and Edsall, John T. (eds). The Origins of Modern Biochemistry. A Retrospect on Proteins. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 325. New York: N.Y.A.S., 1979.

Stahl, Franklin W. (ed). We Can Sleep Later. Alfred D. Hershey and the Origins of Molecular Biology. Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000.

Stent, Gunther S. "DNA." Dædalus, vol. 99, no. 4 (1970): 909.

Summers, William C. Félix d'Herelle and the Origins of Molecular Biology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.

Watson, James D. The Double Helix. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968.

----- and Francis Crick. "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid." Nature vol. 171 (1953): 737-738. View Paper

----- and John Tooze. The DNA Story. A Documentary History of Gene Cloning. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1981.

Wolf, George. "Friedrich Miescher: The Man Who Discovered DNA." Chemical Heritage. vol. 21, no. 2 (2003): 10-11, 37-41.