In a special edition of GEN Live to wrap up 2025, we are thrilled to welcome special guest Matthew Cobb, PhD, author of a wonderful new biography of Francis Crick, PhD, entitled CRICK: A Mind in Motion.
Cobb has written a compelling 500-page biography of Crick, who deduced the structure of the double helix (building on experimental data obtained by Rosalind Franklin) before making seminal advances in molecular biology (the ‘central dogma’, cracking the genetic code, and more). Later in life, he moved to the Salk Institute in Southern California and made further contributions to the study of consciousness and the human brain.
One reviewer praised Cobb’s book for capturing Crick’s “incandescent intellect, his incessant striving for mechanistic explanations in terms of genes and neurons underlying the code of life and the footprints of consciousness in the brain, always, always asking why and why not.”
How did one man, who was not a great student in his early years, become such a scientific legend? Tune in and enjoy Cobb’s insights into the mind of Francis Crick and his relationship with Rosalind Franklin, PhD, and Jim Watson, PhD, who died in November 2025.
