The Discovery of DNA – Dr Kersten Hall and Dr Ralf Dahm present their new book
Leeds Philosophical and Literary SocietyLeeds Art Gallery, The Headrow, Leeds
Fri 9 Oct · 13:00 · Free
About this event
Thanks to cinema blockbusters such as the Jurassic Park, World Series baseball commentary or any number of Marvel super-hero offerings, DNA has become an icon in popular culture. In TV debates, electoral candidates talk about certain policies being ‘in their DNA’; sports coaches talk about styles of play being in the DNA of their team; and in 2022, the semi-final entry in the popular TV show, ‘The Great British Bake-Off’ featured a DNA double-helix baked in Krokan pastry. Yet if asked who discovered DNA, most people (including most scientists) would struggle to give an answer. If pushed, they might offer the names of scientists James Watson and Francis Crick who are today commemorated with a plaque on the wall of ‘The Eagle’ pub in Cambridge centre for having first announced there in February 1953 that they had found ‘the secret of life’. But DNA had been discovered long before Watson and Crick are supposed to have gone bursting into ‘The Eagle’. For almost a century earlier, working in a freezing cold former kitchen of a medieval castle, Swiss scientist Friedrich Miescher had first isolated a novel substance that he named ‘nuclein’, and which today we know as ‘DNA’. The authors explore the life and work of this rather tragic figure who died aged only 51, burdened by a gnawing sense of things left undone and missed opportunities. They will show why, perhaps today more than ever, Miescher’s story still matters. Kersten Hall is a visiting fellow in the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. Having earned a PhD in molecular biology he worked as a post-doctoral scientist at the lab bench for several years before turning to the history of science. His book The Man in the Monkeynut Coat (Oxford University Press) explores the little-known story of pioneering scientist William Astbury whose research into wool fibres for the textile industry not only helped to transform our understanding of biology at the molecular level but also led to the first studies of the structure of DNA, the genetic material. First published in 2014 when it was shortlisted for a prize by the British Society for the History of Science and chosen by a reviewer at ‘The Guardian’ newspaper as one of ‘reads of 2014’, a new updated edition of the book was released in 2022. The little known but crucial role of West Yorkshire wool research in the emergence of molecular biology also makes a return appearance in his next book Insulin – the Crooked Timber (Oxford University Press, 2022) which recounts the discovery of insulin and its transformation from what one clinician described as ‘thick brown muck’ into the first pharmaceutical to be produced by genetic engineering. Ralf Dahm is the Director of Scientific Management at the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) and the Centre for Healthy Ageing (CHA) in Mainz, Germany. He also serves as a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Biology at the University of Padua, Italy, where he teaches courses on science communication, fundraising, and critical thinking. Ralf earned his Master’s and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Dundee, followed by a Habilitation in Neuroscience from the Medical University of Vienna. Since 2003, when he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, he has been studying the pioneering work of Friedrich Miescher, the scientist who first discovered DNA. [Ralf gave an online talk to the Society back in January 2026 but we were not able to share the video because of copyright concerns.] 14.30 Saturday 10 October: Ralf and Kersten will be talking about their book at the Ilkley Literature Festival. Their slot is followed at 16:30 by Adrian Woolfson talking about his new book ‘On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence’ which explores how, through the convergence of synthetic DNA technology and artificial intelligence, biology may well become programmable – with huge social, technological -and ethical implications.
