“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience, and experiment. . . . I agree that faith is essential to success in life, but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e., belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining.” — Rosalind Franklin in a letter to Ellis Franklin, 1940
As Women’s History Month comes to a close, I’d like to highlight one of my favorite researchers, Dr. Rosalind Franklin. Rosalind Franklin was a British chemist who is best known for her role in the discovery of the structure of DNA, and for her unique use of X-ray diffraction. Although originally overshadowed by Watson and Crick, who first claimed to discover the structure of DNA, Dr. Franklin is now recognized as the person who established DNA structure.
Known throughout the scientific community as a brilliant researcher, Rosalind Franklin was pivotal in laying the groundwork for women who wanted to pursue a career in science. But, how did she get to that point? Who was she before she obtained her PhD? Here, I will talk about the life of Rosalind Elsie Franklin before and after her important discoveries.
Rosalind was born in 1920 in Notting Hill, London, England, to an affluent and influential Jewish Family. From early childhood, she demonstrated impressive intelligence, and in her teenage years declared she wanted to become a scientist.
“All her life,” Franklin’s mother later noted, “Rosalind knew exactly where she was going, and at sixteen, she took science for her subject.”
Franklin attended several schools throughout her earlier education, including North London Collegiate School, where she particularly excelled in science. In 1938, she enrolled at Newnham College in Cambridge and majored in physical chemistry. World War II partially shaped her undergraduate years, as many professors were pulled into government work or even detained as aliens.
“Practically the whole of the Cavendish [Laboratory] have disappeared,” Franklin noted in a letter. “Biochemistry was almost entirely run by Germans and may not survive.” On a much lighter note, Cambridge was home to a number of war refugees, one being the French scientist Adrienne Weill who became a dear friend and mentor to Rosalind.
Franklin earned a grant from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research thanks to her excellent exam scores, which provided an attractive reason to stay at Cambridge in spite of the war. Despite her academic achievements, her supervising professor R.G.W. Norrish did not take her seriously. Rosalind documented that “became most offensive” when “I stood up to him,” and years later an interview with Norrish revealed he did not approve of her interest in “raising the status of her sex to equality with men.”
Nevertheless, she persisted and earned her Bachelor’s Degree in 1941 and was qualified for employment after being awarded Second Class Honors in her finals. A year later, as more women were moving into industry and academia, Franklin accepted a position with the British Coal Utilisation Research Association. There, she designed and conducted experiments to identify the porosity of coals—work that yielded her 1945 PhD thesis “The physical chemistry of solid organic colloids with special reference to coal,” along with five scientific papers.
Adrienne Weill helped Rosalind get a position in Jacques Mering’s laboratory at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimique de l’Etat in Paris where she learned how to analyze carbons using x-ray diffraction, which later became her specialty. Later, in 1949, Franklin pursued a position in England as her friend Charles Coulson, a theoretical chemist, suggested she perform x-ray diffraction on large biological molecules. She was later asked to investigate DNA at the suggestion of the assistant lab chief, Maurice Wilkins, during which time she took increasingly clear x-ray diffraction photos. By 1953, her photos identified that there were two forms of DNA—wet and dry—which both had two helices.
Also in 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson were working on a theoretical model of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. Unbeknownst to Franklin, Watson and Crick obtained crucial information about the structure of DNA from her unpublished research and x-ray diffraction photos. Although Crick later admitted that Franklin played a part in identifying the correct structure, both him and Watson never told Franklin they used her materials, and they did not originally acknowledge her work in their publication.
Franklin was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1956, likely due to her proximity to x-ray beams. Even while undergoing experimental chemotherapy and three operations, she continued her research. Despite a 10-month remission, she succumbed to her illness at the age of 37 in 1958.
In 1962, Crick, Watson, and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine regarding their work on DNA structure—none gave Franklin credit at the time. However, we now know Dr. Rosalind Franklin played a pivotal role in the discovery of the DNA double-helix, and her work is appreciated across the globe. There have been a number of documentaries and articles highlighting her part in “the race for the double helix,” being portrayed as the feminist martyr she was. Today, her work is well-known in the research sector and inspires female scientists to continue to break down barriers and be whoever they want to be.
References
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rosalind-Franklin
https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/spotlight/kr/feature/biographical-overview
https://www.biography.com/scientists/rosalind-franklin
https://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/about/facts-figures/dr-rosalind-franklin/