ROSALIND FRANKLIN

The Unsung Mother of the Double Helix

The Discovery of the structure of DNA
was one of the most important scientific
achievements in the last century
Unfortunately, Rosalind Franklin was never
awarded a prize
She was born in England in 1920
She wanted to be a scientist
ever since she was a teenager
She won a scholarship to Cambridge
to study Chemistry
She earned a PHD
She conducted research on
the structure of coal This research
led to the
design
of
leather gas
masks
for the British
during the
WWII
In 1951 she joined King`s College
She started using crystallography to try to
determine the structure of DNA
Academic culture wasn´t very friendly to
women.
Franklin was isolated from her colleagues
She clashed with Maurice Wilkins.
He was a lab mate and she hired him as
her assistant
In 1952 she obtained photo 51, the most
famous x- ray image of the DNA
It took one hundred hours
American biologist Watson and British
physicist Crick were also working on finding
DNA structure
Without Franklin`s permission,
Wilkins took photo 51.
He showed it to Walson and Crick.
Watson and Crick published their model
in 1953
Franklin finished her calculations and
submitted her own manuscript
The journal published the manuscripts
together BUT
It looked as if her experiments confirmed
Watson and Crick`s discovery.

In fact,
They got
inspiration from
Franklin`s work
She died of cancer in 1958
Watson, Crick and Wilkins won the Nobel
Prize in 1962 for their work on DNA
Rosalind was not even mentioned!!
It is time to honour Rosalind Franklin!