The molecule that carries genetic information in living organisms — deoxyribonucleic acid, whose double-helix structure was determined in 1953 by Watson, Crick, Franklin, and Wilkins — and the conceptual foundation that unified biology, explained heredity, enabled genetic medicine, and transformed humanity's relationship to its own biology.
On the morning of February 28, 1953, Francis Crick walked into the Eagle pub in Cambridge and announced that he and James Watson had found ‘the secret of life.’ It was an unusual claim for a Tuesday morning. It turned out to be approximately correct.