Rosalind Franklin

Who discovered DNA? Watson & Crick! Duh, everybody knows that. James Watson and Francis Crick get almost all of the credit for DNA’s discovery for their work at Cambridge. They both received the Nobel Prize in 1963, along with a colleague Maurice Wilkins. In actuality, Watson and Crick did not crack the DNA structure on their own. Far from it. Watson & Crick were not known for being talented experimentalists. Instead of trying to define the structure of DNA through work in the lab, they opted to instead use models to try to fit together the molecular building blocks of DNA, which had already been worked out by other chemists. Watson and Crick failed over-and-over again putting together their models. It wasn’t until they got wind of work at nearby King’s College that they were able to solve the structure.

What happened at King’s College? Well, a couple of things. First, the extremely talented chemist Rosalind Franklin presented her X-ray images of the structure of DNA to her colleagues at King’s College. Cambridge researcher James Watson was in the audience.

Secondly, Despite being an extremely talented experimentalist, Rosalind Franklin was not known for being easy to work with. Strong headed and introverted, Rosalind came into conflict with her boss and colleague Maurice Wilkins almost immediately. Rosalind was assured that she would have the DNA/X-ray project all to herself through multiple letters written by Dr. Wilkins. When she arrived at King’s, she was surprised to hear that she would work with a grad student (Raymond Gosling) and Wilkins himself. The contentious relationship between Rosalind and her Boss/Colleague Maurice Wilkins led to a good deal of animosity, and eventually her research being ‘leaked’ to Wilkins’ close friend Francis Crick on a visit to Cambridge.

The images Rosalind reported (in gallery) showed a very distinct X shape in DNA. When James Watson saw her images, he imagined the shapes of his models floating into place to make that X shape in the form of a double helix. Rosalind was acknowledged in Watson and Crick’s World-Changing 1953 Nature paper, but was snubbed for the Nobel prize. The great injustice was Maurice Wilkins taking credit for Rosalind Franklin’s work. A combination of career politics, Rosalind’s abrasive personality, and sexisms led to her exclusion from a prize she most certainly deserved.

Rosalind Franklin was born in 1920 into a wealthy English family, and discovered science at an early age. She excelled in school, completing university at Newham college in 1941 after just 3 years. She then attended Cambridge, eventually transferring laboratories to study the property of coal in 1942, earning her PhD in 1945. Following the second world war, Rosalind began her work with X-Ray diffraction in Paris, a technique she pioneered to observe complex crystals of sub-microscopic molecules. It was at King’s college in 1951 that she designed her own x-ray diffraction apparatus that she used to observe the first images of DNA. Her famous image known as “photograph 51” can be seen in the gallery of this cache page, showing its basic helical structure. After being snubbed for the Nobel Prize, Dr. Franklin continued to research, making significant advances in the molecular structure of viruses, including influential work on Tobacco Mosaic Virus published in 1955.

In 1956 Rosalind began suspecting that she had medical problems during a trip to the United States. She found herself struggling to zip up her skirt due to a bulge in her stomach. When she returned to London, Rosalind was diagnosed with cancer and endured several rounds of convalescence with family and friends. Interestingly, she spent time with Francis Crick and his Wife Odile, with whom she had become close friends. Even at the end of her life, she herself had no animosity for Watson or Crick. Franklin chose to stay with friends and not her parents, because her mother’s uncontrollable grief and crying upset her too much. Despite her illness, she continued to run a highly successful laboratory, publishing seven papers in 1956 and six in 1957. On April 17^th 1958 she died. Cancer occurs when a cell undergoes a genetic mutation that allows it to divide uncontrollably. Although it cannot be proven, her cancer was likely caused due to high exposure to mutagenic X-rays.

N40 2A.BCD W105 0E.FG2

A = Photograph 5_ inspired Watson and Crick’s DNA structure.

B = Roslind graduated from Newham in 19_1

C = 3

D = Rosalind Franklin published 6 papers in 195_

E = Rosalind died in 1_58.

F = Dr. Franklin began studying coal in 194_

G = She published her paper on Tobacco Mosaic Virus in 195_

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This Geocache was created and is maintained by Stanley Polley, a Science teacher at Loveland Classical Schools.

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