Rosalind Franklin ( )
{"Image DocumentName": "Rosalind Franklin ( )", "Image ImageDescription": "A chemist by training, Franklin had made original and essential contributions to the understanding of the structure of graphite and other carbon compounds even before her appointment to King s College. Unfortunately, her reputation did not precede her. James Watson s unflattering portrayal of Franklin in his account of the discovery of DNA s structure, entitled The Double Helix, depicts Franklin as an underling of Maurice Wilkins, when in fact Wilkins and Franklin were peers in the Randall laboratory. And it was Franklin alone whom Randall had given the task of elucidating DNA s structure. The technique with which Rosalind Franklin set out to do this is called X-ray crystallography. With this technique, the locations of atoms in any crystal can be precisely mapped by looking at the image of the crystal under an X-ray beam. By the early 1950s, scientists were just learning how to use this technique to study biological molecules. Rosalind Franklin applied her chemist s expertise to the unwieldy DNA molecule. After complicated analysis, she discovered (and was the first to state) that the sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA lies on the outside of the molecule. She also elucidated the basic helical structure of the molecule. After Randall presented Franklin s data and her unpublished conclusions at a routine seminar, her work was provided - without Randall s knowledge - to her competitors at Cambridge University, Watson and Crick. The scientists used her data and that of other scientists to build their ultimately correct and detailed description of DNA s structure in Franklin was not bitter, but pleased, and set out to publish a corroborating report of the Watson-Crick model. Her career was eventually cut short by illness. It is a tremendous shame that Franklin did not receive due credit for her essential role in this discovery, either during her lifetime or after her untimely death at age 37 due to cancer.", "Image XResolution": "37", "Image YResolution": "37", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "SlidePlayer", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered"}