Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin (July 25, 1920 - April 16, 1958) was a molecular biologist who assisted in the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Rosalind Franklin was born in London, England, and graduated from Cambridge University in 1941. Because of the ongoing war, World War II, she worked at the British Coal Utilization Research Association studying the nature of coal and charcoal and how to use them most efficiently, a problem affecting the war. Her work helped spark the idea of high-strength carbon fibers and was the basis of her doctorate degree in physical chemistry that she earned in 1945. She learned X-ray diffraction techniques during three years' study in Paris at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de L'Etat, returning to England to work as a research associate at King's College London with John Randall.

Without her knowledge, another Randall research associate, Maurice Wilkins, showed some of her X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA to James D. Watson, whereupon Watson, with Francis Crick, succeeded in determining the molecule's structure, and published in Nature magazine on April 25, 1953 an article describing the double-helical structure of DNA. Articles by Wilkins and Franklin illuminating their X-ray diffraction data supporting the findings of Watson and Crick were published in the same issue.

Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 in London; it was almost certainly caused by exposure to radiation in the course of her research. Wilkins, Watson, and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.

Much has been written on the role that Franklin played in the discovery of the structure of DNA. While it is clear that her work was an important basis for determining DNA's structure, the correct deduction itself was mostly the work of Watson and Crick. Whether, given time, Franklin would have reached the same deduction in the rather competitive race (including such figures as Linus Pauling) to discover the structure of DNA is unknown. Watson has stated that Franklin should have discovered the structure of DNA as much as two years before he and Crick did.

While many have asserted that Franklin deserved to share the Nobel prize with Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, and it was sexism that resulted in her denial of this, her death 4 years earlier is generally seen to have precluded her. While Nobel prizes are generally not awarded posthumously, there are exceptions (such as that of Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961).

Further reading

• Brenda Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, 2002. ISBN 0060184078.