26 February 20

Today's tie anticipates Friday's anniversary of the announcement (in 1953) of the structure of the "double helix" for deoxyribonucleic acid. James Watson and Francis Crick (and other significant contributors) elucidated the complicated patterns of protein sequences in DNA through the twin laboratory techniques of gel electrophoresis and x-ray crystallography. My tie's design is based on the image of a "plate" from gel electrophoresis, where electric currents are used to draw apart various portions of the DNA molecule based on subtle electrochemical differences. Although the patterns on the plate are linear, the repeating sequences of the fragments (in constant "matching pairs" of amino acids) demand some kind of rotary or cyclic structure, and that turned out to be best understood as a double helix.