Women's History Month
A woman's fingerprints on the fingerprints of life
In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the work all three performed in nucleic acid research, but primarily for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. In popular culture Watson and Crick are often referred to as the men who discovered DNA, the genetic code that carries the "instructions" for the development and functioning of cells and organisms. Popular history is deficient, however, by leaving out a fourth name, that of Rosalind Franklin, whose contribution to the discovery of the double helix was equal to, and possibly greater than, that of Watson, Crick or Wilkins, although Watson and Crick were instrumental in identifying the operation of base pairs in DNA.
Rosalind Franklin, born in 1920 in London, graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1941, but was granted a titular degree, as at that time women were not granted full degrees by Cambridge. During World War II Franklin performed cutting edge research on coal and high strength carbon fibers in support of the war effort. In 1945 she was awarded her PhD in physical chemistry from Kings College, Cambridge and joined the faculty, where she became a member of a group working on DNA research. There she encountered Maurice Wilkins, who subsequently was assigned the work on the B form of DNA while Franklin directed the effort on the A form of DNA. Drs. Wilkins and Franklin had very different personalities. Some professional antipathy developed between the two of them.
Dr. Franklin did significant work with x-ray defraction. She took many photographs using this technology that essentially verified the double helix structure of DNA (there had been alternative theories, such as one developed by Linus Pauling, who thought that DNA must be a triple helix). One of the great controversies in modern science is centered on these photos. Photo 51, described as, "amongst the most beautiful x-ray photographs of any substance ever taken," was shown by Wilkins to James Watson without Franklin's knowledge or consent. Max Perutz, Crick's thesis advisor, showed Crick a report containing calculations by Franklin, also without her knowledge or consent. On one hand, Dr. Franklin was in the process of moving from Kings College to another university, while her research belonged to Kings College. On the other hand, the crucial role played by Franklin's research is undeniable. "The instant I saw the picture," Watson was to write many years later, "my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race..."
In a tale reminiscent of Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both filing patent applications for the telephone on the exact same day in 1876, Dr. Franklin submitted two papers on the general structure of DNA on March 6, 1953 to a major scientific journal in Denmark, just one day before Watson and Crick completed their model. Watson and Crick published a full description of their model in Nature on April 23, 1953. In many respects, Dr. Franklin was a victim of her own meticulous nature. She felt that more research was required to confirm the data, which lead to one heated exchange between Watson and Franklin in which he told her that she did not know how to interpret her own data. In 1953, Franklin went on with her plans to leave Cambridge and went on to work on the tobacco mosaic and on polio viruses and other path breaking work that laid the foundation of structural virology before her untimely death in 1958. Since the Nobel Prize cannot be given posthumously, we will never know whether she would have been recognized with the Nobel prize along with Watson, Wilkins and Crick in 1962, but it appears doubtful since she stopped working on DNA after she left Cambridge.
In 1998, the National Portrait Gallery placed a portrait of Franklin along side those of Drs. Watson, Crick and Wilkins. In 2002, the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute created the "Rosalind E. Franklin Award for Women in Science" and in 2008 Columbia University posthumously granted her the Horowitz Prize in honor of her "seminal contribution to the structure of DNA." Numerous buildings and gardens have been named for Dr. Franklin around the world, but her greatest legacy remains her groundbreaking scientific work.
In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the work all three performed in nucleic acid research, but primarily for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. In popular culture Watson and Crick are often referred to as the men who discovered DNA, the genetic code that carries the "instructions" for the development and functioning of cells and organisms. Popular history is deficient, however, by leaving out a fourth name, that of Rosalind Franklin, whose contribution to the discovery of the double helix was equal to, and possibly greater than, that of Watson, Crick or Wilkins, although Watson and Crick were instrumental in identifying the operation of base pairs in DNA.
Rosalind Franklin, born in 1920 in London, graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1941, but was granted a titular degree, as at that time women were not granted full degrees by Cambridge. During World War II Franklin performed cutting edge research on coal and high strength carbon fibers in support of the war effort. In 1945 she was awarded her PhD in physical chemistry from Kings College, Cambridge and joined the faculty, where she became a member of a group working on DNA research. There she encountered Maurice Wilkins, who subsequently was assigned the work on the B form of DNA while Franklin directed the effort on the A form of DNA. Drs. Wilkins and Franklin had very different personalities. Some professional antipathy developed between the two of them.
Dr. Franklin did significant work with x-ray defraction. She took many photographs using this technology that essentially verified the double helix structure of DNA (there had been alternative theories, such as one developed by Linus Pauling, who thought that DNA must be a triple helix). One of the great controversies in modern science is centered on these photos. Photo 51, described as, "amongst the most beautiful x-ray photographs of any substance ever taken," was shown by Wilkins to James Watson without Franklin's knowledge or consent. Max Perutz, Crick's thesis advisor, showed Crick a report containing calculations by Franklin, also without her knowledge or consent. On one hand, Dr. Franklin was in the process of moving from Kings College to another university, while her research belonged to Kings College. On the other hand, the crucial role played by Franklin's research is undeniable. "The instant I saw the picture," Watson was to write many years later, "my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race..."
In a tale reminiscent of Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both filing patent applications for the telephone on the exact same day in 1876, Dr. Franklin submitted two papers on the general structure of DNA on March 6, 1953 to a major scientific journal in Denmark, just one day before Watson and Crick completed their model. Watson and Crick published a full description of their model in Nature on April 23, 1953. In many respects, Dr. Franklin was a victim of her own meticulous nature. She felt that more research was required to confirm the data, which lead to one heated exchange between Watson and Franklin in which he told her that she did not know how to interpret her own data. In 1953, Franklin went on with her plans to leave Cambridge and went on to work on the tobacco mosaic and on polio viruses and other path breaking work that laid the foundation of structural virology before her untimely death in 1958. Since the Nobel Prize cannot be given posthumously, we will never know whether she would have been recognized with the Nobel prize along with Watson, Wilkins and Crick in 1962, but it appears doubtful since she stopped working on DNA after she left Cambridge.
In 1998, the National Portrait Gallery placed a portrait of Franklin along side those of Drs. Watson, Crick and Wilkins. In 2002, the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute created the "Rosalind E. Franklin Award for Women in Science" and in 2008 Columbia University posthumously granted her the Horowitz Prize in honor of her "seminal contribution to the structure of DNA." Numerous buildings and gardens have been named for Dr. Franklin around the world, but her greatest legacy remains her groundbreaking scientific work.
posted by Kathleen, Contributing Editor at
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