James Watson, a renowned molecular biologist and one of the Nobel Prize winners for discovering the structure of DNA, died Thursday after a brief illness, according to a statement from his former employer.
He was 97.
His death was confirmed by a spokesperson with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he spent the bulk of his career, who cited he died following a brief illness.
Watson, whose mission it was to figure out what the molecule of life looks like, won a Nobel Prize for it in 1962. He later became the first director of the groundbreaking Human Genome Project and the first living recipient to sell a Nobel Prize, some of which went toward raising money for scientific research.
“I think early on, I wanted to do something important with my life. I still want to think about science and really nothing else,” Watson told CNN in 2013. “Being driven by the desire to find the truth, that’s really my legacy.
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