Why was rosalind franklin work important

News Feature 10 NOV Correspondence 09 NOV Article 10 NOV Article 03 NOV Article 27 OCT News 05 NOV University of Washington UW. Francis Crick Institute. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Advanced search. Skip to main content Thank you for visiting nature. You have full access to this article via your institution. Download PDF. References 1. PubMed Article Google Scholar 2. She showed an early passion for science, and after graduating, she worked as a research chemist in the British Coal Utilisation Research Association, with significant work on the structure of coals earning her a PhD from Cambridge in After the war, she found a job in Paris where she became proficient in analysing carbons using X-ray crystallography.

This data gave them the insight they needed to determine the true double helix structure of DNA, and they soon published a paper in Nature announcing their discovery. The wet form she realized was probably helical in structure, with the phosphates on the outside of the ribose chains. Her mathematical analyses of the dry form diffractions, however, did not indicate a helical structure, and she spent over a year trying to resolve the differences. By early she had concluded that both forms had two helices.

Though not in close communication with Franklin, in January they gleaned crucial insights about DNA's structure from one of her x-ray diffraction photos shown to them by Wilkins, and from a summary of her unpublished research submitted to the Medical Research Council. Watson and Crick never told Franklin that they had seen her materials, and they did not directly acknowledge their debt to her work when they published their classic announcement in Nature that April.

Crick later admitted that Franklin was two steps away from realizing the correct structure in the spring of By that time, Franklin had arranged to transfer her fellowship to J. Bernal's crystallography laboratory at Birkbeck College, where she turned her attention to the structure of plant viruses, particularly tobacco mosaic virus TMV.

Working with a team that included future Nobelist Aaron Klug, Franklin made meticulous x-ray diffraction photos of the viruses. Her analyses of the diffraction patterns revealed, among other things, that TMV's genetic material RNA was embedded in the inner wall of its protective protein shell.

This work involved collaboration with many other virus researchers, particularly in the United States. Franklin made two lengthy visits there, in and , and established a network of contacts all over the country, including Robley Williams, Barry Commoner, and Wendell Stanley. Her expertise in virus structures was recognized by the Royal Institution in , when its director honored her with a request to construct large-scale models of rod-shaped and spherical viruses for the Brussels World's Fair Science Exhibition.

In the fall of Franklin was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. For the next 18 months she underwent surgeries and other treatments; she had several periods of remission, during which she continued working in her lab and seeking funding for her research team. She died in London on April 16, Throughout her year career, Franklin published steadily: 19 articles on coals and carbons, 5 on DNA, and 21 on viruses.

Rosalind Franklin. A passionate woman. Franklin worked hard and played hard. She was an intrepid traveler and avid hiker with a great love of the outdoors who enjoyed spirited discussions of science and politics. Friends and close colleagues considered Franklin a brilliant scientist and a kindhearted woman.

However, she could also be short-tempered and stubborn, and some fellow scientists found working with her to be a challenge. Among them was Maurice Wilkins, the man she was to work with at King's College. This page appears in the eBook Essentials of Genetics, Unit 1.

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