The J. Craig Venter Institute history of molecular biology collection was created to document the foundation and early history of molecular biology. The collection documents milestones in molecular biology, including topics such as genetics and the structure of DNA, RNA, transfer RNA, messenger RNA, and various viruses and biologically important proteins. The collection includes correspondence, lectures, reprints, manuscripts, research files, laboratory notebooks, interviews, photographs and a small number of artifacts from various molecular biologists, scientists and Nobel Prize winners including Oswald Avery,Sir Lawrence Bragg, Sydney Brenner, Donald Caspar, Erwin Chargaff, Robert B. Corey, Francis Crick, Max Delbruck, Maurice Fox, Rosalind Franklin, Bruce Fraser, Sven Furburg, Raymond Gosling, A.D. Hershey, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Rollin Hotchkiss, Horace Judson, John Kendrew, Aaron Klug, Vittorio Luzzati, Barbara McClintock, Linus Pauling, Max Perutz, Frederick Sanger, Leo Szilard, James Watson, Maurice Wilkins, and Herbert Wilson, among others.