ANCESTRY - Key Persons
Crick and Watson were the first to publish a paper on the double helix structure of DNA. And in 1962, they were awarded a Nobel Prize for this groundbreaking discovery.
James Watson and Francis Crick published their findings on the double helix in a paper titled "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" in April of 1953. Though Franklin's work proved key to helping Watson and Crick devise their model, their paper included a mere footnote acknowledging that they were "stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature" of the unpublished work and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins and Dr. R. E. Franklin and their King's College colleagues.
Maurice Wilkins was a famous scientist who shared a Nobel Prize in 1962 for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA-a discovery which revolutionized the field of biology.
Maurice Wilkins was a famous scientist who shared a Nobel Prize with James Watson and Francis Crick in 1962 for their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA-a discovery which revolutionized the field of biology.
Maurice Wilkins was born in 1916 to Irish parents living in New Zealand. When he was six the family moved to England. Wilkins received his PhD in Physics at the University of Birmingham before joining other leading researchers on the Manhattan Project in Berkeley, California during World War II.
After the war Maurice Wilkins returned to the U.K., where he conducted his most recognized work.
In 1946 Maurice Wilkins joined the Medical Research Council's Biophysics Unit under his mentor John Randall at King's College London. It was there that Wilkins began to study DNA's structure through X-ray diffraction, with the help of graduate student Raymond Gosling.
Four years later, in 1950, Wilkins discovered that he could produce very thin, uniform threads of DNA, using a sample of extraordinarily pure DNA he obtained from a Swiss scientist named Rudolf Signer. He and Gosling were then able to use the DNA fibers to take X-ray diffraction photographs that revealed the crystal-like structure of the DNA threads.
The following year, Wilkins' work took him to Naples, where he gave a talk on DNA. The American scientist James Watson was in the audience and became very excited about Wilkins' work on the structure of DNA. Not long afterwards, Watson ended up at an academic institution not too far from King's College London, where Maurice Wilkins worked.
That same year, Wilkins' boss, John Randall, brought in another scientist to work on their team: a talented X-ray crystallographer by the name of Rosalind Franklin. In an interview years later, Wilkins attributed Franklin's recruitment to the fact that she was an expert in X-ray diffraction, whereas he was simply a general physical molecular biologist.
After Watson and Crick's failed three-stranded helical model of DNA, Lawrence Bragg, the head of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, instructed them to stop working on DNA. But they continued to discuss it on their own, keen on solving the mystery of the structure of DNA - a feat which would eventually earn them and Maurice Wilkins a Nobel Prize.
A breakthrough came in January of 1953, when Watson visited King's College and ran into Wilkins. Wilkins showed Watson an X-ray diffraction image of crystallized DNA captured by his colleague Franklin and the PhD student Raymond Gosling. The image of DNA, known as Photo 51, showed an X-shaped pattern which was consistent with a helical molecule.
Watson immediately recognized its significance later writing in his book, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, 'The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race.'
The combination of Franklin's images of DNA, along with her research which Watson and Crick obtained from Crick's thesis advisor Max Perutz, proved critical to helping Watson and Crick solve the mystery of DNA's double-helix structure.
Instead, James Watson and Francis Crick, together with Franklin's colleague Maurice Wilkins, received the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the structure of DNA in 1962. Rosalind Franklin, who died in 1958, was not included in the award, as a Nobel Prize can only be shared by three living scientists.
In March 1953, Rosalind Franklin left King's College London, for the research institution, Birkbeck, University of London. There, she led their X-ray diffraction studies on plant viruses, with a particular focus on the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV).
As her scientific research continued to attract attention, Franklin received an increasing number of invitations to speak at conferences around the world. In 1954 and 1956, she made trips to the United States, where she collaborated with other researchers and established contacts around the country. While in the U.S. she was invited by the Royal Institution to create five-foot models of helical and spherical viruses for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair.
Rosalind Elise Franklin was a British scientist whose work was instrumental in one of the greatest discoveries of modern science: the structure of DNA. However, her work with DNA and her contribution to the discovery of the double helix were largely overlooked in her lifetime.
Job Titles:
- Director of Cavendish Laboratory
- Head of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge