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Rosalind Elsie Franklin ( 25 July , 1920 – 16 April , 1958 ) was a British Physical Chemist and Crystallographer who made very important contributions to the understanding of the fine structures of Coal and Graphite , DNA and Viruses . Rosalind Franklin is best known for her contribution to the discovery of the Structure Of DNA in 1953. BACKGROUND Rosalind Franklin was born in ''. EDUCATION AND CAREER University education and work at British Coal Utilisation Research Association In the Summer of 1938 Rosalind Franklin went to fibres and was the basis of her doctoral degree "The physical chemistry of solid organic Colloid s with special reference to Coal and related materials" that she earned in 1945.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 82 Work at ''Laboratoire central des services chimiques de l'État'' After the war ended she accepted an offer to work in .Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 111 Work at King's College London Rosalind Franklin started working as a research associate at and Raymond Gosling had been carrying out x-ray diffraction analysis of DNA in the Unit since 1950. The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 121 Rosalind Franklin, working with her student Raymond Gosling Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 129 started to apply the expertise she had gained in x-ray diffraction techniques to the structure of DNA. They discovered that there were two forms of DNA, at high humidity (when wet) the DNA fibre became long and thin, when it was dried it became short and fat.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 153The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 154 These were termed DNA 'B' and 'A' respectively. The work on DNA was subsequently divided, Franklin taking the A form to study and Wilkins the 'B' form.The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 158Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 155 The x-ray diffraction pictures taken by Franklin at this time have been called, by J. D. Bernal , "amongst the most beautiful x-ray photographs of any substance ever taken".Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 153 By the end of 1951 it was generally accepted in King's that the B form of DNA was a Helix , but Franklin in particular was unconvinced that the A form of DNA was helical in structure.The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 176 As a practical joke Franklin and Gosling produced a death notice regretting the loss of helical crystalline DNA (A-DNA).The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 182 During 1952 Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling worked at applying the Patterson Function to the x-ray pictures of DNA they had produced,Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 168 this was a long and labour-intensive approach but would give an insight into the structure of the molecule.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 169The Third Man of the Double Helix, pp. 232-233 In February 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University had started to build a Model of the B form of DNA using similar data to that available to the team at King's. Model building had been applied succesfully in the elucidation of the structure of the Alpha Helix by Linus Pauling in 1951,Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 147The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 158 but Rosalind Franklin was opposed to building theoretical models, taking the view that building a model was only to be undertaken after the structure was known.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 161The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 176 Francis Crick and James Watson published their model in '' in a move that had been planned for some time.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 168 Work at Birkbeck College, London of Tobacco Mosaic Virus]] Rosalind Franklin's work in Birkbeck involved the use of x-ray crystallography to study the structure of the Norman Pirie , though her observation ultimately proved correct.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 252 Rosalind Franklin worked on rod like viruses such as TMV with her in TMV is wound along the inner surface of the hollow virus.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 269 Franklin, R.E. (1956) ''Location of the ribonucleic acid in the tobacco mosaic virusparticle. Nature'' 177:928 It was in the Summer of 1956, while on a work related trip to the . She returned to work in January 1958 and was given a promotion to ''Research Associate in Biophysics''.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 302 She fell ill again on the 30th of March Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p.305 and died on the 16th of April Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p.307 CONTROVERSIES SURROUNDING ROSALIND FRANKLIN Various controversies have surrounded Rosalind Franklin, these have all come to light after her death. Allegations of sexism at King's College There have been allegations that Rosalind Franklin was discriminated against because of her gender: One of the allegations is that King's, as an institution, was sexist, the thrust of the allegation being that women were excluded from the staff dining room, and had to eat their meals in the student hall or away from the University. Rosalind Franklin and DNA, p.97Bryson, B. ''A Short History of Nearly Everything.'' (2004), page 490. Black Swan edition 0 552 99704 8 This does not appear to be the whole story. Whereas it is true that there was a dining room for the exclusive use of men (as was the case at other University Of London colleges at the time), there was also a mixed gender dining room that overlooked the river Thames , many male scientists refused to use the male only dining room, due to the preponderance of Theologians .Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 128 The other accusation regarding gender is that women were under-represented in John Randall's group, the claim is that there was only one other woman in the group and that the women were excluded because of their gender.Rosalind Franklin and DNA, p.99 In fact women seem to have been (by the standards of the time) exceptionally well-represented in the group, representing eight out of thirty-one members of staff,Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 133 or possibly closer to one in three.The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 256 Rosalind Franklin's contribution to the Crick and Watson model of DNA There are several controversies surrounding her contribution to the Crick and Watson model of the structure of DNA produced in 1953. The major controversies are that: Her work was used without her knowledge and that she did not get the recognition due to her. Rosalind Franklin's contribution to the Crick and Watson model of DNA Rosalind Franklin's contributions to the Crick and Watson model include an X-ray photograph of B-DNA (called photograph 51),Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, pp. 177-178 that was briefly shown to James Watson by Maurice Wilkins in January 1953,Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 196Crick, F. H. C. ''What Mad Pursuit'', p67 ISBN 0465091377 and a report written for an MRC biophysics committee visit to King's in December 1952. The report contained unpublished data from the King's group, including Rosalind Franklin's work, and was given to Francis Crick by his thesis supervisor '' March 2003, p. 61Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, pp. 198-199 Maurice Wilkins had been given photograph 51 by Rosalind Franklin's PhD student Raymond Gosling, because she was leaving King's to work at Birkbeck, there was nothing untoward in this,Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, pp. 196The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 198 though it has been implied, incorrectly, that Maurice Wilkins had taken the photograph out of Rosalind Franklin's drawer.The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 257 Likewise Max Perutz saw no harm in showing the MRC report to Francis Crick as it had not been marked as confidential.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 199 The upshot of all this was that when Francis Crick and James Watson started to build their model in February 1953 they were working with very similar data to those available at King's. Rosalind Franklin was probably never aware that her work had been used during construction of the model.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 316 Recognition of her contribution to the Crick and Watson model On the completion of their model, Francis Crick and James Watson had invited Maurice Wilkins to be a are cited in the paper, and that the unpublished work of both Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins are acknowledged in the paper. Crick, F. H. C. and Watson, J. D. (1953) '' Molecular structure of nucleic acids '', ''Nature'' 171 pp. 737-738 Nobel Prize The rules of the Nobel Prize forbid posthumous nominations.Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, p. 205 Rosalind Franklin had died in 1958, Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins won their Nobel Prize in 1962. '' The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962 '', ''for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material'', Nobelprize.org The award was given for work on Nucleic Acids and not exclusively for the discovery of the structure of DNA.The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 242 By the time of the award Maurice Wilkins had been working on the structure of DNA for over ten years, and had done much to confirm the Crick-Watson model.The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 240 Francis Crick had been working on the Genetic Code at Cambridge.The Third Man of the Double Helix, p. 243 James Watson had worked on RNA for some years. The Nobel Prize was awarded in recognition of these contributions in addition to the proposal of a structure for DNA. POSTHUMOUS RECOGNITION
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