Alisher Usmanov, who owns the country’s biggest ore producer, bought the medal at an auction at Christie’s in New York city as he wanted to make sure the double helical DNA structure stayed in the scientist’s possession.

Mr Usamanov was upset to hear he would be selling it as he "deserved" the medal, and wanted to thank him for his discovery which has helped further research into cancer, the disease which killed his own father.

Mr Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for uncovering the double helix structure of DNA, sparked an outcry in 2007 and stunned the scientific community when he suggested that people of African descent were inherently less intelligent than white people.

Mr Watson, 86, apologised but saw his income had plummeted and he was forced him to retire from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. He still holds the position of chancellor emeritus there.

The billionaire, who was named Britain's wealthiest man in the Sunday Times rich list for 2013 with an estimated worth of £10.7 billion, said: "James Watson is one of the greatest biologists in the history of mankind and his award for the discovery of DNA structure must belong to him.

"Dr Watson’s work contributed to cancer research, the illness from which my father died. It is important for me that the money that I spent on this medal will go to supporting scientific research, and the medal will stay with the person who deserved it.”

After the unusual intervention, Mr Usmanov said that Mr Watson could now keep the 23-carat gold medal but donate the proceeds of the sale to the research institutions that helped his research.

The medal is the first to be sold by a living recipient.

(telegraph.co.uk)