Special Person #2

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.

Born: July 25, 1920, Notting Hill, United Kingdom

Full name: Rosalind Elsie Franklin

Education: University of Cambridge (1945)

Fields: X-ray Crystallography

Known for: Fine structure of coal and graphite, Structure of DNA, Structure of viruses

Her DNA work achieved the most fame because DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) plays an essential role in cell metabolism and genetics, and the discovery of its structure helped her co-workers understand how genetic information is passed from parents to children.

Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix. Her data, according to Francis Crick, were "the data we actually used” to formulate Crick and Watson's 1953 hypothesis regarding the structure of DNA.

After finishing her portion of the work on DNA, Franklin led pioneering work on the tobacco mosaic virus and the polio virus. She died in 1958 at the age of 37 of ovarian cancer.

Nobel Prize

Franklin was never nominated for a Nobel Prize. She had died in 1958 and was ineligible for nomination to the Nobel Prize in 1962 which was subsequently awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins in 1962. The award was for their body of work on nucleic acids and not exclusively for the discovery of the structure of DNA.