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60 years since the publication of the decoding of DNA - live stream of Crick Memorial Meeting (Original Post) muriel_volestrangler Apr 2013 OP
I hope Rosalind Franklin is receiving appropriate credit... DreamGypsy Apr 2013 #1

DreamGypsy

(2,252 posts)
1. I hope Rosalind Franklin is receiving appropriate credit...
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 11:19 AM
Apr 2013

...for her major contributions.

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"[3] to formulate Crick and Watson's 1953 hypothesis regarding the structure of DNA.[4] Franklin's images of X-ray diffraction confirming the helical structure of DNA were shown to Watson without her approval or knowledge. Though this image and her accurate interpretation of the data provided valuable insight into the DNA structure, Franklin's scientific contributions to the discovery of the double helix are often overlooked.[5] Unpublished drafts of her papers (written just as she was arranging to leave King's College London) show that she had independently determined the overall B-form of the DNA helix and the location of the phosphate groups on the outside of the structure. Moreover, Franklin personally told Crick and Watson that the backbones had to be on the outside, which was crucial since before this both they and Linus Pauling had independently generated non-illuminating models with the chains inside and the bases pointing outwards.[6] However, her work was published third, in the series of three DNA Nature articles, led by the paper of Watson and Crick which only hinted at her contribution to their hypothesis.[7]

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.

<snip>

One of Rosalind Franklin's important contributions to the Crick and Watson model was her lecture at the seminar in November 1951, where she presented to those present, among them Watson, the two forms of the molecule, type A and type B, and her position whereby the phosphate units are located in the external part of the molecule. She also specified the amount of water to be found in the molecule in accordance with other parts of it, data that have considerable importance in terms of the stability of the molecule. Franklin was the first to discover and formulate these facts, which in fact constituted the basis for all later attempts to build a model of the molecule.

The other contribution included an X-ray photograph of B-DNA (called photograph 51),[101] that was briefly shown to James Watson by Maurice Wilkins in January 1953,[102][103] and a report written for an MRC biophysics committee visit to King's in December 1952 which was shown by Dr. Max Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory to both Crick and Watson. This MRC report contained data from the King's group, including some of Rosalind Franklin's and Raymond Gosling's work, and was given to Francis Crick — who was working on his thesis on haemoglobin structure — by his thesis supervisor Max Perutz, a member of the visiting committee.[104][105] Maurice Wilkins had been given photograph 51 by Rosalind Franklin's Ph.D. student Raymond Gosling, because she was leaving King's to work at Birkbeck. There was allegedly nothing untoward in this transfer of data to Wilkins,[106][107] since the Director Sir John Randall had insisted that all DNA work belonged exclusively to King's and had instructed Franklin in a letter to even stop thinking about it.[108] Also it was implied by Horace Freeland Judson, incorrectly, that Maurice Wilkins had taken the photograph out of Rosalind Franklin's drawer.[109] However, the B-DNA X-ray pattern photograph in question was shown to Watson by Wilkins — without Franklin's permission.

Likewise Max Perutz saw "no harm" in showing an MRC report containing the conclusions of Franklin and Gosling's X-ray data analysis to Crick, since it had not been marked as confidential, although – in the customary British manner in which everything official is considered secret until it is deliberately made public – "The report was not expected to reach outside eyes".[110] Indeed, after the publication of Watson's The Double Helix exposed Perutz's act, he received so many letters questioning his judgment that he felt the need to both answer them all[111] and to post a general statement in Science excusing himself on the basis of being "inexperienced and casual in administrative matters".[112]
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