Nobel Prize gold medal-winner James Watson said his 1962 award is going to be auctioned off Thursday. His medal given for the scientific discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA will be hitting the auction block in New York City.

Watson's handwritten notes of his acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize banquet ceremony back on Dec. 10, 1962 in Stockholm, Sweden will be included, Yahoo reports.

On Dec. 4, at Christie's New York, who is conducting the sale, the scientific memorabilia could earn an estimated $2.5 million to $3.5 million.

A draft of the lecture that Watson gave the day after the ceremony is also up for sale, another collector piece that is expected to sell for $200,000.

With his colleagues Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, Watson discovered the double-helix structure DNA forms, earning the three the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Watson is widely considered one of the most important scientific discoverers of the 20th century, as this information on DNA has given rise to much of molecular biology and medicine advances since.

Just last year, Christie's auctioned off another piece of science memorabilia, a letter penned by Crick in 1953. The seven-page, handwritten letter sent to Crick's son, age 12 at the time, was purchased for an astonishing $6,059,650. In the note, the discovery outlined was the big breakthrough that would eventually earn the man a Nobel Prize. In this sale, Crick's gold medal was also sold, going to a Chinese biotech executive for $2 million.

However, this auction is the first time in history that a living Nobel Prize recipient has offered to auction off his or her prize medal, according to Christie's auction house. Watson, who is now 86 years old, intends to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale to support scientific research, as well as donate to academic and charitable institutions.

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