DNA pioneer James Watson ‘helped Welsh firm thrive’

Martin Shipton

James Watson, the Nobel Prize winning DNA pioneer who died last week, was instrumental in helping a small Welsh company grow to the point where as part of the giant Siemens group it now employs hundreds of people.

In one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 20th Century, the American biologist identified the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953 alongside British scientist Francis Crick, setting the stage for rapid advances in molecular biology.

But former Plaid Cymru President Lord Dafydd Wigley also remembers Watson for another reason. He told Nation.Cymru: “In around 1991 James Watson came to Wales to discuss a joint project in Llanberis with Alpha Dyffryn Cyf (ADC), the small company I helped set up which was run by Osborn Jones. The discussions with James Watson led to a merger between ADC and DPC to create Euro-DPC at Llanberis.

“It is now part of Siemens and currently employs more than 400 workers at Llanberis. In two weeks time the company is opening another new facility, also in Llanberis.

“Without us having persuaded James Watson into seeing Llanberis as a feasible location, and then having 100% support from the Welsh Development Agency, it wouldn’t have happened.

“I was still on Jim Watson’s Christmas card list! His wife Liz, nee Lewis, had daily links to Cardiff apparently going far back.”

Siemens Healthineers – as the firm linked to Watson is now known – is a medical technology company that provides a wide range of products and services to help healthcare providers, including diagnostic and therapeutic imaging, laboratory diagnostics, and digital health solutions. It describes its mission as to “pioneer breakthroughs in healthcare” by offering innovative technologies and services that improve patient care, increase efficiency, and solve healthcare challenges through solutions like artificial intelligence, patient twinning, and precision therapy”.

Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure and function of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is considered to rank alongside those of Mendel and Darwin in its significance to modern science.

The full power of their achievement would slowly emerge over decades of research by fellow geneticists.

Demonstrating that DNA has a three-dimensional, double-helix shape allowed Watson and Crick to unlock the secrets of how cells worked; the means by which characteristics were passed down through generations.

It also prompted a series of controversial scientific and ethical issues, including human cloning, designer babies and “Frankenstein foods”.

Nobel prize

The discovery won Watson and Crick a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 and a place in the historic ranks of great scientific thinkers.

However, in later life Watson’s reputation was damaged by offensive comments he made about race. In 2007, the scientist told The Times newspaper that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa”, because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.

He apologised “unreservedly”, but nevertheless the comments led to him losing his job as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

Further comments he made in 2019 – when he once again suggested a link between race and intelligence – led to the laboratory stripping his honorary titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R Grace professor emeritus and honorary trustee.

“Dr Watson’s statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science,” the laboratory said in a statement at the time.