Do you remember when your annoying schoolfriend would copy your answers for the homework? The teacher would ask her for the answer and when she got it right, she basked in all the glory. Frustrating, wasn’t it? Well, just imagine if you were the one to discover the structure of DNA and your colleagues were rewarded for it while you were erased from history.
Although Rosalind Franklin had been relegated to the background of scientific history, her work on DNA was crucial to the discovery of its famous double helix structure.
A rising genius
Rosalind was born in London in 1920 to a family who valued the importance of education, and so at the age of 18 she started studying physics and chemistry at Newnham Women’s College at Cambridge University. After university, she started her PhD thesis on the porosity of coal after working for the British Coal Utilisation Research Association. She was an avid traveller, and her academic work allowed her to see the world as a guest speaker at international conferences.
In 1947, she moved to Paris as a postdoctoral researcher became an expert in X-ray crystallography. Four years later, she moved back to London and started work in King’s College where she met physicist Maurice Wilkins.
“One of the photos that Francis and James saw was Rosalind’s Photo 51, which was an X-ray diffraction picture of a DNA molecule whose pattern was a double helix”
The two worked together, trying to uncover the structure of DNA. However, a misunderstanding caused friction between them and their working relationship began to deterioriate. This conflict led each to work in relative isolation and, while this was fine with introverted Rosalind, Maurice sought to find some company from his friend, molecular biologist and biophysicist Francis Crick.
Rosalind was robbed!
Francis was working on building a model of the DNA molecule with geneticist James Watson and, unknown to Rosalind, Maurice showed both of them some of her unpublished data.
One of the photos that Francis and James saw was Rosalind’s Photo 51, which was an X-ray diffraction picture of a DNA molecule whose pattern was a double helix. With help from this photo, James and Francis created their famous DNA model and Rosalind’s contribution went unnoticed.
She later moved to Birkbeck College in London where she started working on structures of the tobacco mosaic virus and travelled the world talking about her passion: coal structures. Sadly, just as her career was taking off, her life was cut short when she tragically died in 1958 from ovarian cancer, at the age of just 37.
In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the structure of DNA. As the Nobel prize can only be awarded to the living, Rosalind’s role in this monumental discovery was not acknowledged. Nor was due credit given to her by the three men for many years.
In his memoir, James credited her work in the formation of the double helix structure. In 2015, Nicole Kidman portrayed her in a West End play, Photograph 51. Today, Rosalind Franklin is finally getting the recognition she deserves.
First published in Wallflower magazine
