Jerry Donohue - Role in Determining Structure of The Deoxyribonucleic Acid

Role in Determining Structure of The Deoxyribonucleic Acid

Throughout his life Donohue specialized in crystal structures and analysis, specifically of molecules relating to biology and hydrogen-bonding. In 1952, Donohue was given a Guggenheim Foundation grant to study at Cambridge University for 6 months. He shared an office with Francis Crick and James D. Watson. In his work to determine the structure of DNA, Watson had been using structure for guanine from a monograph by James N. Davidson. Davidson had depicted these bases in the enol configuration and Watson used this structure in an unsuccessful 'like-with-like' pairing of the bases. Donohue informed Watson that the published structure was just a guess and that the keto structure was more likely, based on a publication of June Broomfield and quantum mechanical calculations. Within a few days, Watson and Crick were able to build their famous model for DNA.

In their famous article by Watson and Crick in Nature that proposed the structure of DNA, the following acknowledgment to Donohue appears: "We are much indebted to Dr. Jerry Donohue for constant advice and criticism, especially on interatomic distances".