Top US scientist suspended by lab for "racist" remarks

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2007

NEW YORK (AFP) — A US Nobel Prize-winning scientist who triggered a storm with reportedly racist comments canceled his British book tour Friday to return home, where his lab has suspended him from duty.

"The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees decided to suspend the administrative responsibilities of Chancellor James D. Watson, PhD, pending further deliberation by the board," the lab said in a statement.

Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, had been in London for a book tour when an interview he gave to the Sunday Times sparked a furore.

He had been the number two at the Long Island laboratory, just outside New York. But the lab said Watson was suspended "after the board's public...