Rosalind Elsie Franklin is a brilliant British chemist whose X-ray studies provided a key insight into the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid and quantitatively validated the Watson-Crick model. She also established that DNA molecules exist in more than one form.
Rosalind Franklin: short biography, photo
Rosalind was born in London on July 25, 1920, the second of five children of a prominent Anglo-Jewish family. Her father, Ellis Franklin, was a partner in the Keyser Bank, one of the family's largest businesses (the other was Routledge and Kegan Paul). He and his wife Muriel were active in charitable and other social causes. Rosalind Franklin (photo in the article is given below) studied at St. Paul's School for Girls, which prepared graduates for future careers, and not just for marriage. Mathematics and natural sciences were easy for her, as well as foreign languages (in the end, she was fluent in French, Italian and German). Unlike many polyglots, she had no ear for music. Gustav Holst, director of music at St. Paul's School, once remarked that Rosalind's singing had improved almost to the point of being in tune. The Franklin family often went hiking, and tourism has become one of their lifelong passions, along with foreign trips.
Studying at Cambridge
According to her mother, all her life Rosalind knew exactly where she was going, and at the age of sixteen she chose science as her subject. Not wanting another year of college preparation, she left school in 1938 to attend Newnham, one of the two women's colleges at the University of Cambridge. Her father did not, as some sources claim, oppose her in this, although he could have guided her in a more traditional course. At Cambridge, Franklin majored in physical chemistry. Her student years partly fell on the Second World War. Many teachers were then involved in military research. Some emigrants (such as the biochemist Max Perutz) were detained as foreigners. In one letter, Franklin noted that “practically all of the Cavendish has disappeared; biochemistry was read almost entirely by the Germans and could not survive.”
Help the front
In 1941, Rosalind Franklin received a bachelor's degree, a scholarship for another year of work, and a grant from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. She spent this time in the laboratory of Norrish, the famous pioneer of photochemistry. In 1942, while the war was still going on, Franklin had to decide whether she should take up traditionalmilitary work or to conduct research in a field related to the needs of wartime with the prospect of a doctoral degree. She chose the latter and began working with the newly formed British Coal Research Association (BCURA) over the summer.
Rosalind Franklin: biography of a scientist
Over the next four years, Franklin worked to elucidate the microstructure of various coals and carbons to explain why some are more permeable to water, gases, and solvents, as well as how heat and carbonation affect this. In her study, she showed that the pores of coal at the molecular level have thin constrictions, which increase with heating and change depending on the carbon content. They act as "molecular sieves", consistently blocking the penetration of substances, depending on the molecular size. Rosalind Franklin was the first to identify and measure these microstructures. Her fundamental work made it possible to classify coals and predict their efficiency with a high degree of accuracy. Franklin's collaboration with BCURA secured her PhD. She received her PhD from Cambridge in 1945 and wrote five scientific papers.
Moving to France
After the war, Rosalind Franklin began looking for another job. She got a position in the Parisian laboratory of Jacques Mering. Here she learned how to analyze coal using X-ray diffraction analysis, and also became intimately acquainted withtechnique. Her work detailing the structure of graphitizing and non-graphitizing carbons helped form the basis for the development of carbon fibers and new high-temperature materials and brought her international fame among coal chemists. She enjoyed the collegiate professional culture of the Central Laboratory and made many friends there.
Return to England
Although she was very happy in France, in 1949 Rosalind Franklin began looking for work in her homeland. Her friend Charles Colson, a theoretical chemist, suggested that she try "X-ray diffraction techniques" for large biological molecules. In 1950 she was awarded a three-year Turner and Newell Fellowship to work in the John Randall Department of Biophysics at King's College London. Randall planned for Franklin to set up a department of crystallography and do protein analysis. However, at the suggestion of the assistant head of the laboratory, Maurice Wilkins, Randall asked her to do DNA research. Wilkins had just started working on X-ray diffraction of some of the extraordinarily good samples of the genetic code molecules. He expected that he and Franklin would cooperate, but he never told her about it.
DNA snapshot
Only she and graduate student Raymond Gosling did research on deoxyribonucleic acid. Her relationship with Wilkins was plagued by misunderstandings (and possibly by Franklin's dissatisfaction with the university's collegiate culture). Working with Gosling, Rosalind received more and more distinctX-ray photographs of DNA and quickly discovered that the wet and dry forms produced completely different pictures. The wet form showed a helical structure with ribose chain phosphates on the outside. Her mathematical analysis of dry diffraction, however, did not reveal such a structure, and she spent over a year trying to resolve the differences. By early 1953, she concluded that both forms had two spirals.
Forgetful winners
Meanwhile, at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, Francis Crick and James Watson were working on a theoretical model of DNA. Without being in close contact with Franklin, in January 1953 they drew important conclusions about the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid from one of the x-rays that Wilkins showed them, as well as from summaries of her unpublished papers submitted to the Medical Research Council. Watson and Crick did not tell her they had seen her material, nor did they acknowledge her involvement in their work when they published their famous report in April. Crick later admitted that in the spring of 1953, Franklin was a stone's throw away from realizing the correct structure of DNA.
Virus Research
By then, Franklin had arranged for her fellowship to be transferred to the Bernal Crystallography Laboratory at Berkbeck College, where she turned her attention to the structure of plant viruses (particularly the tobacco mosaic). Rosalind took precise x-rays of them, working with a team of scientists that included future Nobel laureate Aaron Klug. Heranalysis of the diffraction patterns showed, among other things, that the genetic material (RNA) of the virus was embedded in its inner protective protein shell. This work included collaborations with many researchers, especially in the USA. Franklin made two extended trips in 1954 and 1956 and built up a network of contacts throughout the country, including with Robley Williams, Barry Commoner, and Wendell Stanley. Her expertise in this field was recognized by the Royal Institute in 1956 when its director asked her to build scale models of rod-shaped and spherical viruses for the 1958 World Science Fair in Brussels.
Disease, death and legacy
In the fall of 1956, Franklin was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Over the next 18 months, she underwent surgeries and other treatments. She had several periods of remission during which she continued to work in her laboratory and sought funding for her research group. Rosalind Franklin, The Forgotten Lady of DNA, died in London on April 16, 1958.
Throughout her 16-year career, she has published 19 scientific papers on coal and carbon, 5 on DNA and 21 on viruses. In recent years, she has received many invitations to speak at conferences around the world. It is likely that work on viruses could finally bring the well-deserved reward and professional recognition of Rosalind Franklin, whose illness and death prevented this.
Role in the discovery of the structure of DNA
Franklin's scientific accomplishments in both coal chemistry and the study of the structure of viruses were significant. Her contemporaries recognized this during her lifetime and after her death. But it was her role in discovering the structure of DNA that attracted the most public attention. Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. No one remembered Rosalind then.
Her work on DNA might not have gone unnoticed had Watson not ridiculed her in his 1968 memoir, The Double Helix. There, he presented "interesting facts" about Rosalind Franklin, portrayed under the name Rosie. He described her as a rude, insolent "bluestocking" woman who jealously guarded her data from colleagues, even if she couldn't interpret it. His book proved to be very popular, although many depicted in it, including Crick, Wilkins, and Linus Pauling, resented this treatment, as did most reviewers.
In 1975, Rosalind's friend Ann Sayre published a biography containing angry rebuttals to Watson's statements, and Franklin's role in discovering the structure of DNA became better known. Numerous articles and documentaries have attempted to gauge the extent of her involvement in the "double helix race", often depicting her as a feminist martyr, robbed of her Nobel Prize by misogynist colleagues and her early death. However, her second biographer, Brenda Maddox, noted that this is also a caricature, which is unfairlyhides Rosalind Franklin herself, the contribution to science of an outstanding chemist and her brilliant scientific career.
