The Eagle pub was a popular lunch spot and tearoom for staff working at the Cavendish Laboratory, based around the corner on Free School Lane.

It was here that Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the “Secret of Life” - the double-helix structure of DNA – a finding based on an image taken by Rosalind Franklin.

The discovery was a huge breakthrough in our understanding of DNA and marked the beginning of the Structural Biology field.

Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine but shockingly, it wasn’t until much later that Rosalind Franklin received recognition for her work and she never received the Noble Prize; this remains a great controversy to this day and highlights the difficulties that women have faced in science.

To commemorate their work, The Eagle has a special ale called “Eagle’s DNA”.

At the Gurdon Institute, many groups are trying to understand the function of different genes in different species. In the Miska Lab, the team are looking at RNA –a single strand of nucleic acids rather than the double-strand which forms DNA.

RNA has many functions including transferring the information in DNA to make proteins (messenger RNA) and controlling protein function.

By looking at the structure of specific proteins, we can see how they interact with RNA and this could help us design new drugs and treatment methods.