DNA Day DNA Day National DNA Day is a holiday celebrated on April 25. It commemorates the day in 1953 when James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and colleagues published papers in the journal Nature on the structure of DNA. Furthermore, on that day in 2003 it was declared that the Human Genome Project was very close to complete, and "the remaining tiny gaps [we]re considered too costly to fill." In the United States, DNA Day was first celebrated on April 25, 2003 by proclamation of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. However, they only declared a one-time
Nucleic acid double helix common double helical structure found in nature, the double helix is right-handed with about 10–10.5 base pairs per turn. The double helix structure of DNA contains a "major groove" and "minor groove". In B-DNA the major groove is wider than the minor groove. Given the difference in widths of the major groove and minor groove, many proteins which bind to B-DNA do so through the wider major groove. The double-helix model of DNA structure was first published in the journal "Nature" by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, (X,Y,Z coordinates in 1954) based upon the crucial X-ray diffraction image