In Francis Crick’s notes for a Memorial Lecture entitled ‘My Life in Science’ that he gave towards the end of his life, one finds at the very end: “Finish: Two General Remarks: (1) Importance of close collaboration […], (2) How to bridge fields, e.g. protein chemistry and genetics, now: neuroscience and consciousness.” From molecular biologist / geneticist James Watson in the 1950s to neuroscientist Christof Koch in Crick's last two decades, the importance of close collaborations to Crick’s scientific career is well-known although unequally documented by historians. That Crick would consider the skill to bridge disciplines on a par with close collaborations as the most salient aspects of his life in science is more intriguing; unsurprisingly so, since the historiography on Crick has largely concentrated on his flamboyant individuality, his Cambridge years and his research contribution to molecular biology and genetics, while it has left underexplored his involvement with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and neuroscience.

The present paper aims at understanding why, looking back on his career, Crick would so value the skill of bridging disciplines: what recognisable professional achievements, beside the usual yardstick of scientific production, could it have led to? To answer the question, the paper focuses on Crick’s ‘wider circle’ rather than his close collaborations, and tracks continuities between his practices at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Great Britain) and at the Salk Institute (California); while methodologically, it borrows both from historical studies of scientific communities and sociology of social networks, in particular recent scholarship on networks of trust. As a result, the paper shows how throughout his career, Crick actively contributed to build multidisciplinary research networks that fitted with his distinctive worldview, and how in the process, he helped shape, and establish strong transnational connections between, the two research institutions that he inhabited in the course of his career. The paper fits into a wider research project embracing Abir-Am’s emphasis on “intermediary units of socio-historical analysis […] such as research schools, circles, clubs, and other informal gatherings […] for comprehending the history of many transdisciplinary fields in twentieth-century science”, prominently molecular life sciences (Abir-Am, 1991, “Noblesse Oblige: Lives of Molecular Biologists”, Isis, 82: 342-343).