- The only Briton to win two Nobel Prizes, and the only scientist to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry twice, in 1958 and 1980.
- He originally planned to become a physician, like his father. However, he became interested in biochemistry at the University of Cambridge.
- He is considered the "father of genomics" for pioneering methods to work out the exact sequence of the building blocks of DNA. He also developed techniques to determine the structure of proteins.
- He was awarded one of the UK's highest honors, the Order of Merit, in 1986. He declined a knighthood, as he did not want to be called a "Sir".
- Long after receiving his first Nobel, he continued to perform many experiments himself, instead of assigning them to a junior researcher, as is usual in modern labs.
- Won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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