CEMB research team working together in a laboratory

The CEMB archive

Words left by
remarkable minds.

Since the 1980s, CEMB’s visitors’ book has preserved reflections from Nobel laureates, government officials and international collaborators who toured the Centre.

Distinguished visitors

Nobel laureates
at CEMB.

Two pioneering scientists whose discoveries changed molecular biology—and whose handwritten impressions remain part of our institutional record.

Visitors’ book page from James Dewey Watson

Original visitors’ book entry

Co-discoverer of the DNA double helix

James Dewey Watson

Born 6 April 1928, James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the landmark paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this discovery.

Visitors’ book page from Hamilton O. Smith

Original visitors’ book entry

Nobel laureate, Physiology or Medicine (1978)

Hamilton O. Smith

“The labs are well set up and very functional.”

In 1967, Hamilton O. Smith joined the Microbiology Department at Johns Hopkins. In 1968, he discovered the first Type II restriction enzyme (HindII) and determined the sequence of its cleavage site. In 1978, he was a co-recipient, with Daniel Nathans and Werner Arber, of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this discovery.

The visitors’ book