Rosalind Franklin
Molecular Biologest
Background
- Name: Rosalind Elsie Frandklin
- Place of Birth: London, England
- Date of Birth: July 25, 1920
- Date of Death: April 16, 1958
Education
- 1938- Newnham College, Cambridge (studied Chemistry)
- 1945- (the basis of her Ph.D) worked as assistant research officer at British Coal
- 1946- Appionted at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chemiques de I'Etat in Paris (worked with Crystallographer; learned x-ray diffraction
Major Contrbutions
- Published 17 papers on viruses
- Her group, tobacco mosaic virus/structure of RNA, laid the foundation for structural virology
- Raymond Gosling and her took pictures if DNA and discovered that there are two forms; Dry "A" and Wet "B"
- Form B became known as photograph 51
Summary
Rosalind Franklin is best known for her role in discovery of the the structure of DNA and for pioneering use on x-ray diffraction. According to John Desmond Bernal "Her photographs were among the most beautiful x-ray photographs of any substance ever taken." Sadly though, Maurice Wilkins and James Wastson used her finding's, without her knowing, as a basis for the famous DNA Model. Which this model landed them the Nobel Prize in 1962. Franklin left Kings College and promised not to work on DNA again so, she began working with RNA and later laid the foundation for structural virology.