Molecular structure of nucleic acids. A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. 1953

This is Watson and Crick's concise, understated original explication of their double helical model of DNA and its key feature, the complementary pairing of the purine and pyrimidine bases on the inside of the molecule. The schematic drawing of the double helix was provided by Crick's wife, Odile, a trained artist. Although it has since become canonical, one of the best-known articles in the scientific literature, it was not often cited during the early years after its publication. Its significance was acknowledged fully by biochemists and other scientists, and it became a standard reference, only after the mechanism by which DNA directed the synthesis of proteins, the building blocks of life, was elucidated in the late 1950s.