The Crick, Brenner et al. experiment (1961) was a scientific experiment performed by Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, Leslie Barnett and R.J. Watts-Tobin.
It was a key experiment in the development of what is now known as molecular biology and led to a publication entitled "The General Nature of the Genetic Code for Proteins" and according to the historian of Science Horace Judson is "regarded...as a classic of intellectual clarity, precision and rigour".    This study demonstrated that the genetic code is made up of a series of three base pair codons which code for individual amino acids. The experiment also elucidated the nature of gene expression and frame-shift mutations.