Rosalind Franklin: The ‘X’ pattern in photo 51

Rosalind FranklinJames Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the structure of DNA. Absent from many accounts of their Nobel Prize-winning work is the contribution made by their colleague, Rosalind Franklin.

There was scientific evidence that DNA was connected with heredity as early as 1944, but its molecular structure remained a mystery. An even greater mystery was how one of these molecules could carry a living thing’s genetic endowment and could precisely duplicate it. Researchers suspected that answering the structure question would clear up the function question.

At age 30, London-born Rosalind Franklin had earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and was already a leading expert in the field of X-ray crystallography – the art of probing the inner structure of molecules with X-rays. In 1951, she accepted a post at King’s College London to study the structure of DNA with Maurice Wilkins. Franklin discovered two different forms of DNA and made detailed X-ray pictures of each type. Photo 51 was exceptional.

Without Franklin’s knowledge, Wilkins showed Photo 51 to Watson, who, with Crick, was doing research on the structure of DNA. Watson recalled, “My mouth fell open and my pulse began to race.” The distinctive “X” pattern in Photo 51 proclaimed that the structure had to be a helix. Two weeks later Watson and Crick built a double helix — their soon-to-be famous model of DNA. Then they invited Franklin to Cambridge to review the model. She never suspected that her unpublished research had been drawn upon to build it.

“Ironically, Franklin might never have won even limited glory if not for her defamatory treatment by Watson in his 1968 bestseller, ‘The Double Helix,’ ” notes reviewer Frazier Moore. “Watson characterized Franklin as a hard-bitten opponent, slamming her as ill-tempered, incompetent and unattractive — ‘a woman who had to go or be put in her place.’ Creating something of a backlash, this portrait of Franklin was disputed even by other veterans of the boys’ club culture that had undercut Franklin during her … Kings College years.”

SOURCE OF QUOTE: Frazier Moore, Nova on PBS pays tribute to Rosalind Franklin, the unsung heroine of DNA. Canada.comNews, April 18, 2003.

TOBY ROSSNER (tobyross@cox.net) was the director of media services at the Bureau of Jewish Education from 1978 to 2002.