In 1954, James Watson and George Gamow formed a “gentleman’s club” to “solve the riddle of the RNA structure and to understand how it built proteins.” There were 20 members, each of whom was designated by an amino acid:

Member	Training	Tie Designation
George Gamow	Physicist	ALA
Alexander Rich	Biochemist	ARG
Paul Doty	Physical Chemist	ASP
Robert Ledley	Mathematical Biophysicist	ASN
Martynas Ycas	Biochemist	CYS
Robley Williams	Electron Microscopist	GLU
Alexander Dounce	Biochemist	GLN
Richard Feynman	Theoretical Physicist	GLY
Melvin Calvin	Chemist	HIS
Norman Simons	Biochemist	ISO
Edward Teller	Physicist	LEU
Erwin Chargaff	Biochemist	LYS
Nicholas Metropolis	Physicist, Mathematician	MET
Gunther Stent	Physical Chemist	PHE
James Watson	Biologist	PRO
Harold Gordon	Biologist	SER
Leslie Orgel	Theoretical Chemist	THR
Max Delbrück	Theoretical Physicist	TRY
Francis Crick	Biologist	TYR
Sydney Brenner	Biologist	VAL

“We were just drinking California wine and we got the idea,” Gamow recalled. Each member was given a black woolen necktie with an RNA helix embroidered in green and yellow (above are Crick, Rich, Orgel, and Watson).

Each also received a gold tiepin with the three-letter abbreviation of his amino acid (which led several people to ask Gamow why his pin bore the wrong monogram).

Adopting the motto “Do or die, or don’t try,” they met twice a year to share ideas, cigars, and alcohol. Several went on to become Nobel laureates — but it fell to Marshall Nirenberg, a non-member, to finally decipher the code link between nucleic and amino acids.