British DNA pioneer and Nobel Laureate Maurice Wilkins has died at the age of 87.
Wilkins played an important role in the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, the molecule that carries our "life code," the BBC said.
He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1962 with Francis Crick and James Watson. Their co-discoverer was Rosalind Franklin.
Wilkins died Tuesday, two months after Crick passed away.
Watson, the surviving member of the three-man team, said his former colleague was "a very intelligent scientist with a very deep personal concern that science be used to benefit society."
Born in New Zealand in 1916, Wilkins, who studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, used X-ray diffraction techniques to probe the structure of DNA.
In landmark studies that he undertook at King's College London in 1950, Wilkins' group obtained images of DNA that were of unprecedented clarity.
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