Rosalind Franklin
Chemist whose X-ray images revealed the structure of DNA
Born 1920 · Died 1958
Photo: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology · CC BY-SA 4.0
«Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.»
Rosalind Franklin produced the X-ray diffraction image that showed DNA was a helix, the single piece of evidence that let Watson and Crick build the correct model. She died of ovarian cancer at thirty-seven, four years before the Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery.
Key achievements
- Produced Photo 51, the X-ray image that revealed DNA's helix
- Founded the structural study of viruses, including tobacco mosaic
- Her coal research remains a basis of carbon fibre science
Universities
Cambridge, England
Read natural sciences at Newnham College from 1938 and took her PhD in physical chemistry in 1945.
London
Led the X-ray diffraction work on DNA from 1951, producing the image known as Photo 51.
Facts
- Photo 51 was shown to James Watson without her knowledge or permission.
- Her later work on the structure of viruses, including polio, was itself of Nobel standard and is often overlooked.
- Cambridge did not award full degrees to women until 1948, three years after she completed her doctorate.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.