Rosalind Elise Franklin was born in 1920 in London to a wealthy
and well connected Anglo-Jewish family (one of her uncles
was the politician and first High Commissioner of Mandatory
Palestine, Herbert Samuel).
Educated at St. Paul's School for Girls, London, in 1938 she
went to study at Newnham College, Cambridge, passing her
finals in 1941, although not receiving a degree, as Cambridge
University did not grant them to women at that time. In 1942 she went
to work at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association
where, in 1945, she earned a doctorate in the field of high
strength carbon fibres.
After the end of World War II she went to work in Paris at
the Laboratoire des services chimiques de
l'État learning there the technique of X-ray
crystallography.
In 1950 she returned to Britain to a position at Kings
College, London, under Maurice Wilkins, where she worked on the X-ray diffraction of
DNA and produced the images which formed the basis of the
model of the structure of DNA published by James Watson and
Francis Crick in 1953.
After further work in the field she died in 1958 from
ovarian cancer probably caused by exposure to X-rays during
the course of her work.
The Nobel prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA
was given to Crick, Watson and Wilkins in 1962 but could not
be awarded to her, as Nobel prizes are not granted
posthumously.
Paul Rivlin
Bibliography
Chomet, S. (Ed.), D.N.A. Genesis
of a Discovery,Newman- Hemisphere Press, London,
1994
Maddox, Brenda Rosalind
Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, 2002.
Sayre, AnneRosalind
Franklin and DNA. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
1975
Links
MSN Encarta biography of Rosalind Franklin
Book review of On Giants' Shoulders
The New Yorker: "Photo Finish: Rosalind Franklin and
the great DNA race" by Jim Holt
"Rosalind Franklin and the double helix" in "Physics Today"
magazine
review and summary of Brenda Maddox's book
Nova: "Secret of Photo 51"
Women in Science site
Light on a Dark Lady
Take a BrainSip
