One of the scientists who discovered the shape of DNA has died.

Dr. James Watson was 97 years old.

Watson, according to The New York Times, was “one of the most important scientists of the 20th century.”

He was only 25, according to the Times, or 24 according to The Associated Press, when he and Francis H.C. Crick, discovered what the blueprint of life looked like, the newspaper said.

“Francis Crick and I made the discovery of the century, that was pretty clear,” Watson said, according to the AP. He later wrote: “There was no way we could have foreseen the explosive impact of the double helix on science and society.”

Watson’s son said he died on Nov. 6 in East Northport, New York. He was in hospice care and was at the facility, transferred from a hospital after being treated for an infection.

Watson was on the faculty of Harvard University and was the director of the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health, which mapped the more than 20,000 genes in the human chromosomes, The Washington Post reported.

Despite his scientific findings of the double-helix structure, for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1962, he was, as The Washington Post reported, “ostracized late in life for writings condemned as racist and sexist.”

The newspaper said that he was called “the most unpleasant human being I had ever met” by Harvard biologist Edward Wilson, who compared Watson to the Roman emperor Caligula.

Wilson, according to the Post, made sexist comments against female scientists, proposed a link between climate and libido, and agreed with the idea of a connection between IQ and ethnicity.

Because of his comments on race, he was removed as the director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Post reported.

He was also shunned by other scientists because of his beliefs and had to sell his Nobel medal because he needed the money. It was purchased by a Russian businessman for $4.1 million, who returned it to Watson, the Post reported.

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