Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins Chase Greenberg and Taewon Kim

Rosalind Franklin

Background Born July 25, 1920 in London Attended Newham College, Cambridge She was taught X-ray Crystallography and X-ray diffraction from Jacques Mering She worked at Kings College in London

Maurice Wilkins

Background Born in Pongaroa, New Zealand in 1916 1938: Graduated St. John’s College in Cambridge with a degree in Physics Started work with John Randall at University of St. Andrews in Scotland Both moved to Kings College where Randall soon hired Franklin

Experiment Prepared crystallographs from uniformly oriented DNA fibers. The images suggested a spiral model X-ray crystallography: When a purified substance can be made to form crystals; the pattern of diffraction passed though the crystallized substance shows position of atoms Shows 3-D pattern Franklin created Photo 51 using DNA diffraction. This method does not require crystallization. DNA doesn’t like to form a crystal, rather organized fibers

DNA Crystallography

Photo 51

Contributions It was Rosalind Franklin’s “Photo 51” that allowed Watson and Crick realize DNA has a double helix structure https://www.dnalc.org/view/15260-rosalind-franklin-points-out-watson- and-crick-s-mistakes-raymond-gosling.html Photo 51 was shown to Watson and Crick by her colleague Maurice Wilkins without her knowledge In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the shape of DNA Franklin was not recognized for her work until after her death

Sources https://www.dnalc.org/view/15014-Franklin-s-X-ray-diffraction-explanation- of-x-ray-pattern-.html https://askabiologist.asu.edu/Rosalind_Franklin-DNA http://www.dnaftb.org/19/bio-4.html http://www.biography.com/people/maurice-wilkins-21335889#manhattan- project