6 Rosalind Elsie Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born in London on July 25th, 1920. As a child, she attended St. Paul’s School for Girls, where she showed an aptitude for science, language, and mathematics. After graduating in 1938, she attended Newnham College, where she acquired a bachelor’s degree in physical chemistry and met her close friend Adrienne Weill.

After finishing her undergraduate degree, Franklin began working as a researcher for the British Coal Utilization Research Association (BCURA). While working at BCURA, Franklin researched the relationship between the microstructures of coal and the permeability of coal. She graduated from Cambridge in 1945 with a Ph.D., having already successfully published five articles. By the end of World War II, Franklin’s friend Weill introduced her to Jacques Mering, a scientist specializing in X-ray diffraction. Mering later hired Franklin to work with him at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimique de l’Etat in Paris in Paris, where he taught her the process of x-ray diffraction analysis in which she became quite skilled.

In 1950 she earned a three-year Turner and Newall Fellowship at King’s College in England, working for John T. Randall’s lab. While there, Franklin was tasked by Randall to investigate DNA structures utilizing X-ray diffraction. As a result of her x-ray diffraction on the DNA samples, Franklin discovered that DNA structures had both a “wet” and dry” state which produced very different results from each other. Initially, Franklin could only hypothesize that the “wet” state shared a helical structure with the “dry” state, but she eventually confirmed that both were helical. However, her identity as a Jewish woman made her feel unwelcome as Christian men at King’s College constantly surrounded her. Thus, Franklin ultimately decided to abandon her work and relocated to Birkbeck College instead, where she analyzed the structure of the tobacco mosaic Virus.

In the fall of 1956, Franklin was diagnosed with ovarian cancer; while not undergoing surgeries or a period of remission, she continued to work in her lab at Birkbeck. Sadly, Rosalind Elsie Franklin died from ovarian cancer on April 16th, 1958, at the young age of thirty-eight.

One unfortunate aspect of Franklin’s story is the fact that it was her work that ultimately led to the discovery of the helical nature of DNA. However, Franklin’s role in discovering the double-helical nature of DNA was not revealed until long after her death. The reason for the suppression of Franklin’s role in the discovery of the nature of DNA is commonly attributed to her status as a Jewish woman, as her work would long be ignored in favor of the contributions made by two cisgender heterosexual white men. In January of 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson were shown Franklin’s “Photograph 51” by Maurice Wilkins. Crick and Watson were also shown a copy of the Medical Researcher’s Report by Max Perutz, which contained a summary of Franklin’s work at King’s College. This allowed Crick and Watson to “discover” the double-helical shape of DNA. However, they failed to credit Franklin, who took the X-ray diffraction photograph when they wrote their paper. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins would eventually receive the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. However, none of them mentioned Franklin’s enormous contributions to this research. Franklin’s Double Helix contributions would only become public knowledge after Watson included her in his 1968 memoir in which he would defame her; this libel caused Franklin’s friend Anne Sayer to publish a rebuttal to Double Helix, in which she revealed the importance of Franklin’s contributions.

Franklin specialized in X-ray crystallography and X-ray diffraction. By shining X-rays through a sample of a compound, the light diffracts, leading to what looks like spots of darkness on the detector. By determining the pattern and distance between these spots it is possible to calculate the position of every atom within a given sample. This is how Franklin was able to determine the structure of DNA as well as study RNA and the poliovirus. The X-rays used for X-ray crystallography have extremely short wavelength, approximately 0.1 nm, which means that the light is extremely high energy. In modern day experiments, the most effective way to generate X-rays of sufficient energy is by use of a synchrotron, massive buildings that are miles across in order to increase the energy and abundance of X-rays for crystallography. Franklin did most of her work at both King’s College London, and later Birkbeck college was performed with a single X-ray tube, which makes the data she acquired all the more impressive.

Franklin’s most well-known work is her determination of the double helix structure of DNA, however, due to her expertise in X-Ray work, she made other incredible discoveries as well. After moving to Birkbeck college, Franklin started her research on viruses. She used the same X-ray diffraction skills to determine the Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) structure, which targeted plants and destroyed tobacco crops. Using these diffraction images, other scientists were then able to figure out the genetic code and finally experience breakthroughs in treatments after decades of only knowing the miniscule size of the virus. With the structure of TMV figured out, Franklin would then study other plant-related viruses and help provide essential information for viruses that targeted critical agricultural crops such as potatoes, peas, and tomatoes.