Write@Home
Winter 2015

General

Nobel laureate Dr. James D. Watson, Chancellor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

I was in the lab to finish some work. While my supervisor asked my colleagues and me to go to the conference at another university the next day. This conference will present the importance of DNA. I was excited to take the day off and go to a new university.

The next day, I went with my friends to the conference. Then what I saw shocked me, there was a huge number of students in front of the conference door. Unfortunately, it was a limited seat conference, so me and my friends had to struggle to get seats in the conference. Finally, I succeeded to enter the conference, then the organizer starts to present the speakers.

In one second, I saw James Watson, he was sitting on a chair on the stage. He is a famous American molecular biologist and known for discovering the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. I was sitting quite far away from him, but I could see he was tall, wearing a hat and holding a walking stick. I was excited and my heart was pounding with joy.

After he finished his presentation, I moved toward the stage, and I asked him politely if I could take a photo with him. He smiled and said “yes”. After we took a photo, I thanked him. James Watson was very kind to me and my friends as well. He seemed to be tired from the long flight from the US to Turkey.

After meeting James Watson, I felt pleased about meeting him in person as I just read about him only in books when I was a student.

It was fun to tell my family and friends that I met him. It was a hard day but also a very important one.