Summary:
The biography of Rosalind Franklin, a scientist who helped the study of science proceed.
Rosalind Franklin
Achieving a lot throughout her life, Rosalind Franklin was one of the greatest women scientists in the world. She was responsible for much of the research and discovery that led to the understanding of DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid. There were many controversial matters in her life. As a woman, men would put her down and would tell her being a scientist was a man's job. Proving them wrong, Franklin helped discover the now well-known DNA and succeeded in life.
Rosalind Franklin was born in London, England on July 25, 1920. Franklin excelled in science and went to school in London. She went to one of the few schools in London that taught chemistry and physics. Franklin decided to become a scientist at the age of 15. No one believed that she would become a scientist, except her aunt. Franklin wanted to go to college, but unfortunately couldn't afford it; luckily, her aunt decided to pay for her full college tuition. Even though Franklin had the money for college, she still did not have her family's approval. Eventually, Franklin's aunt persuaded Franklin's mother and father to allow her to go college. She enrolled at Newnan College, Cambridge in 1938 and graduated in 1941. During World War II she gave up her research scholarship to contribute to the war effort at the British Coal Utilization Research Association, where she performed fundamental investigations on the properties of coal and graphite.
After the War, she spent three years in Paris at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de L'Etat. Franklin learned X-ray diffraction techniques, which later help lead to the discovery of the structure of DNA. She became a respected authority in this field. In 1951, she returned to England as a research associate in John Randall's laboratory at King's College, London to upgrade the X-ray crystallographic laboratory there for work with DNA.
Maurice Wilkins, a biophysics, was studying about DNA at King's College. He gave the idea to study DNA by X-ray crystallographic techniques, which he had already begun to implement before working with Franklin. Unfortunately, their progress was slowed because the relationship between Wilkins and Franklin was poor. Franklin purified a large amount of DNA and then stretched the DNA fibers. It was put in a thing glass tube so that most of the strands were parallel. Then she aimed a narrow X-ray beam on them and recorded the pattern on film. Her pictures provided some very important information about the structure of DNA. With the help of the pictures, Franklin concluded that DNA are twisted. Also, that large group of molecules in the fiber is spaced out at regular intervals along the length of the fiber.
Between 1951 and 1953, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins came very close to solving the DNA structure. They were beaten to publication by Francis Crick and James Watson in part because of the poor relationship with Wilkins. Though she still went through publication, her work appeared only as a supporting article.
Wilkins, Watson, and Crick were awarded the noble prize for the double-helix model of DNA in 1962. Unfortunately, the noble prize was awarded four years after Rosalind Franklin's death of ovarian cancer. She did not receive a noble prize, because the noble prize is only awarded to the living and not the dead. Though she died at age 37, she fulfilled her life; however, she never received the credit she earned as one of the greatest female scientist ever.
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