Welcome back to the Deep Dive, where we commit
to sifting through complex source material to
hand you the synthesis of knowledge you need
to be truly well informed. Today we are taking
on a story that is, it's part scientific triumph.
part historical injustice and really part of
profound cultural reevaluation. We're diving
deep into the life and, yes, the very contested
legacy of Rosalind Franklin, a brilliant chemist
and X -ray crystallographer. Right. And she's
often saddled with these labels, you know, the
wronged heroine or the dark lady of DNA. Titles
that. Really, they almost overshadow an extraordinary
career that spanned three completely distinct
high -level fields, coal, viruses, and, of course,
the molecular blueprint of life itself. And our
mission today is to go far beyond just the famous,
you know, the famous photo 51. Absolutely. We
need to absorb a thorough yet concise understanding
of her comprehensive scientific contributions.
I mean, work that was appreciated in her short
lifetime, especially in carbon and virology.
Oh, absolutely. She was a star in those fields.
But her foundational role in the double helix
discovery, that was largely obscured, really,
until long after her death. So to do that, we
have to understand her method. Franklin was a
scientist driven by this. This profound, almost
philosophical commitment to empirical proof.
Yes. She believed the data had to speak for itself.
It was an approach that was, well, it was both
her greatest strength and, ironically, the very
reason others were able to publish the key insight
before she felt ready. And before we unpack the
sources chronologically, here's a fantastic little
nugget that, for me, it just immediately signals
the level of focus and rigorous intellect we
are dealing with here. Oh, this is a great story.
As a child, around the age of six, the sources
say she spent all her free time doing arithmetic,
purely for pleasure. Just for fun. And she always,
always got her sons right. That relentless, just
innate pursuit of accuracy. It was baked into
her personality right from the very beginning.
That extraordinary intellectual drive. It wasn't
in a vacuum. It was nurtured in an environment
that valued education and social responsibility
very, very deeply. She was born in 1920 in Notting
Hill, London. Her family was not just affluent.
They were highly influential within the British
Jewish community. Right. And it's so important
to understand this family context because it
genuinely shaped her entire worldview. Her father,
Ellis Arthur Franklin, was a London merchant
banker. But he wasn't just, you know, a finance
guy. He was politically liberal and he dedicated
a huge amount of time to education. He taught
evening classes at the Working Men's College.
And eventually became the vice principal there.
I mean, this is a serious commitment. And her
mother, Muriel Frances Whaley, was just as central
in creating this atmosphere of service. And if
you look at the broader family pedigree, it just
shows this deep, deep history of public engagement.
Her paternal great uncle was Herbert Samuel.
Which is a huge name in British politics. A massive
figure. He was the first practicing Jew to serve
in the British cabinet. First as home secretary
and later foreign secretary. Just an immense
political force. And then on the social activism
front, you have her Aunt Helen Caroline Franklin.
Right, who was deeply involved in the trade union
movement and the women's suffrage fight. She
later became a notable member of the London County
Council. So this was not a family that just sat
on the sidelines. No, they believed in an acting
change. They were active participants. And that
humanity. commitment was, well, it was demonstrated
in the most dramatic way possible during the
rise of the Nazis in the 1930s. Her parents actively
helped Jewish refugees escape persecution. They
were involved in the Kindertransport movement.
And they didn't just donate money. They took
several children into their own home, including
a nine -year -old Austrian girl, Evie Eisenstetter,
who actually share a room with Franklin's younger
sister. So when you see that deep humanitarian
focus, you have to ask. How much of her later
scientific interest in these very practical applications
-based fields. Like coal during the war. Exactly.
Wartime coal research. And then later, virus
research aimed squarely at public health. How
much of that stemmed from this social consciousness
rather than just pure abstract physics? It feels
like a key connection. Franklin always saw her
science as inherently useful. Her training wasn't
in abstract theoretical physics. It was in the
practical application of chemical systems. And
that practical focus, it really began with her
education. She went to St. Paul's Girls' School
in Hammersmith. Which is crucial because it was
one of the very few London girls' schools at
the time that provided rigorous instruction in
physics and chemistry. She just excelled, became
fluent in French and German, mastered Latin,
all alongside her scientific achievements. She
was a genuine polymath. She was a star student.
She won a scholarship to university in 1938.
But there's another great anecdote that illustrates
her family's values here. Oh, right. Her father.
Her father. Her father actually asked her to
give up that scholarship, to relinquish it, so
that a deserving refugee student could take it
instead. It just shows you where their priorities
were. They prioritized helping others, even over
celebrating her own considerable achievements.
She attended Newnham College, Cambridge anyway,
and graduated in 1941. And this led to her initial
and very challenging attempt at postgraduate
work. Right. She tries to pursue a Ph .D. in
physical chemistry under Ronald George. Rayford
Norrish. Let's just pause on that term, physical
chemistry. For anyone listening, this is the
branch of science that's all about the physical
properties and interactions of chemical systems.
So you're applying the principles of physics,
things like energy, force. quantum mechanics
to chemical phenomena. It's incredibly rigorous.
It's all data driven. Exactly. It requires absolute
painstaking rigor. And that's precisely where
the conflict came from. With Norrish. With Norrish,
who, by the way, would later win the Nobel Prize
himself. He was described as obstinate and almost
perverse in argument. And Franklin found the
whole experience so frustrating. She found Norrish
so lacking in enthusiasm that she later wrote,
and this is a direct quote, that she came to
despise him completely. So that early attempt
at a PhD was short and unsuccessful, but it is
so deeply revealing. It reveals her incredibly
low tolerance for what she saw as incompetence
or anything that seemed scientifically sloppy.
That fastidious nature would just define her
entire career. So when that initial academic
path fizzled out, she pivoted quickly. She had
to fulfill the National Service Act's requirement
during World War II. Right. And in 1942, she
joins the British Coal Utilization Research Association,
or BCURA. And this is where she publishes her
first truly groundbreaking work. It's focused
intensely on the physical chemistry of coal,
specifically its microstructure and its porosity.
And we have to remember, this was essential wartime
science. This directly impacted fuel efficiency,
safety. It was critical work. Her research used
these highly precise techniques. For instance,
she used helium gas to determine the true density
of coal, which allowed her to map the internal
structure of these porous, messy substances.
Her key discovery here was establishing the definitive
relationship between the fine constriction inside
the coal pores and the permeability of that porous
space. Which sounds technical, but it's basically
figuring out how gases or fluids could pass through
the solid material. So why does that matter to
her career arc? It matters because this technical
insight It allowed for the accurate classification
of different types of coals. And more importantly,
it had immediate wartime applications. These
measurements were crucial for predicting how
coal would perform as fuel, but also for vital
defensive equipment. Like gas masks. Exactly,
like gas masks, which absolutely rely on a predictable
filtration capacity. You need to know exactly
what can and can't get through. This was highly
specialized, incredibly successful work. And
all of this research formed the entire basis
of her 1945. PhD thesis, which was titled The
Physical Chemistry of Solid Organic Colloids
with Special Reference to Coal. So by the age
of 25, she's already a published expert. She's
known for her ability to bring mathematical precision
to these amorphous, difficult to analyze materials.
And this mastery of difficult x -ray techniques,
that was her scientific superpower. It's what
she takes with her to Paris. Right. That mastery
of structure and these challenging materials
set the stage perfectly for the next critical
phase of her career. Her four years in Paris,
where she fully embraced the tools of X -ray
crystallography. After the war, in 1947, she
secured a position in Paris as a chercheur, which
is a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire
Central des Services Chimiques de l 'État. And
this was thanks to her friendship with a French
refugee she knew, Adrienne Weil, a connection
that changed her life. It really did. We often
talk about X -ray crystallography in the context
of DNA, but for you listening, what exactly did
this involve, especially in her field at the
time? Well, at its simplest, you're shooting
a beam of X -rays at a crystallized substance.
When those X -rays hit the regularly arranged
atoms inside the crystal, they diffract or scatter,
and they create a pattern on a piece of photographic
film. A pattern of spots. A pattern of spots.
And by analyzing the angles and the intensity
of those scattered spots, the diffraction pattern,
you can mathematically reconstruct. the three
-dimensional structure of the molecule that created
it. And the key here, and this goes back to her
work on coal, is that Franklin wasn't starting
with neat, perfectly ordered crystals. No, not
at all. She worked under Joff Meringue, and he
was focused on amorphous substances, things like
rayon. Messy stuff. Exactly. Amorphous materials
lack that neat, repetitive, orderly structure
of perfect crystals. And that makes the resulting
X -ray patterns smeared, messy, and incredibly
difficult to interpret mathematically. So Mering
was the expert in applying these challenging
new techniques to these messy materials. He was.
So she applied her deep knowledge of carbon from
her coal research, and she coupled it with Mering's
sophisticated new techniques. And she starts
tracking the structural changes as carbon atoms
convert into... to graphite when you heat them,
a process that's critical to all sorts of industrial
applications. Her findings here are a lasting
part of mainstream science, completely independent
of her later fame. She coined the essential lasting
terms graphitizing and non -graphitizing carbon.
And those terms are still used today, right?
In material science, physics, chemistry. Yes,
they're fundamental. They're used to classify
how different carbon -based materials behave
when they're heated. This four -year period in
Paris solidified her status as a global leader
in this niche, difficult field. It's so clear
that professionally this was a golden era for
her. But what about personally? The sources all
indicate she absolutely thrived in France. Oh,
she did. She was passionate about French culture.
She was frequently out hiking, exploring, engaging
in Parisian life. She explicitly described the
culture there as, quote, vastly superior to that
of English. And she found English people prone
to faking stupid faces and childlike complacency.
That speaks volumes about the intellectual and
social freedom she must have felt there compared
to the rigid, stuffy British academic environment
she'd experienced before. He does. And it sounds
like Merrin was an exceptionally supportive mentor,
too. He fully recognized her talent. He was apparently
captivated by her intellect, but he also recognized
her exacting standards. What's fascinating is
that while she kept her deepest personal feelings
very private, she clearly gained immense confidence
and refined her independent, rigorous style of
research during this period. It prepared her
for the inevitable high -stakes conflicts that
were waiting for her back in London. She learned
to trust her data implicitly. To believe in the
proof above all else. So Franklin returns to
London in January 1951, and she accepts a three
-year fellowship at King's College. And this
move, it marks the beginning of the most fraught,
most important, and certainly the most documented
two years of her entire career. Right. She joins
the Medical Research Council's biophysics unit,
which was directed by John Randall. Now, initially,
she was recruited to apply her X -ray diffraction
expertise to proteins and lipids. But Randall,
who was very aware that the race to understand
the gene was focusing heavily on DNA, he immediately
redirected her. He saw her skill set and knew
where it was needed most. And this is where the
notorious interpersonal conflicts begin. And
they're rooted almost entirely in a foundational
error by the director, a complete management
failure. Franklin was the only experienced experimental
diffraction researcher at King's at that time.
Randall assigns her the high purity signer DNA
sample, a highly prized resource, along with
a graduate student named Raymond Gosling. And
Gosling had previously been working with Maurice
Wilkins. This is the crucial communication failure.
Randall completely failed to inform Maurice Wilkins
of this reassignment. He specifically failed
to clarify that Franklin was taking over the
DNA work and that she was operating as an independent
group leader. So when Franklin arrives, Wilkins,
who was known to be shy, maybe a bit calculating
and was already struggling to produce high quality
X -ray images of DNA. He just assumed she was
being hired as a research associate to assist
him. An assistant. An assistant. And the clash
was immediate and explosive. Franklin was. proven
independent group leader from Paris. She was
concise, impatient, direct. Traits that often
unnerved colleagues in the male -dominated and
frankly slightly more reserved King's environment.
Absolutely. And Wilkins perceived her directness
as arrogance. He actually called it her air of
cool superiority. So the fundamental miscommunication
created this zero -sum game before she even had
a chance to set up her lab. But the personal
friction immediately yielded technical brilliance.
Franklin inherited Wilkins' existing equipment,
but she was deeply dissatisfied. Her expertise
in physical chemistry just kicked right in. She
refined the x -ray tube and the micro camera
setup. But what was her critical innovation?
The thing that really changed the game? It was
controlling the environment. She built a tiny,
humidity -controlled camera chamber. She did
it by using saturated salt solutions to maintain
these precise levels of moisture around the DNA
fiber while it was being exposed to X -rays.
And why was humidity control such a breakthrough
for studying DNA? Well, DNA is a hygroscopic
molecule. It interacts really strongly with water.
So the amount of water that's bound to the fiber
dictates its physical shape, its structure. So
Wilkins had been taking pictures of fibers that
were probably... What? Half dry, half wet? A
mix. That's the thinking. And that would lead
to messy, ambiguous, smeared diffraction patterns.
Franklin's innovation allowed her to isolate
and stabilize the DNA in two completely distinct
hydration states. And using this refined, precise
technique, she makes the immediate foundational
discovery that DNA existed in two forms determined
entirely by humidity. The drier form A, which
was short and fat and she initially called it
crystalline, and the higher humidity form B,
which was long and thin and she called wet. And
Randall formally divides the work at this point.
Franklin took the data -rich A form for intensive
study and Wilkins was left with the B form. But
even in her initial analysis of both forms, she
was already making these key intellectual strides
that confirmed the overall architecture of the
molecule. We know that in November 1951, she
gave a lecture. And her notes from that lecture
reveal she was already concluding that the structure
was helical. And critically, that the hydrophilic
phosphate groups, the molecular backbone, were
located near the outside. That placement of the
phosphate groups was a crucial, crucial piece
of the puzzle. Other theoretical amygdala builders,
like Linus Pauling, were still proposing models
where the phosphates were incorrectly buried
on the inside. And James Watson was actually
in the audience for that lecture. But the sources
all suggest he completely failed to comprehend
the profound significance of her discovery about
the external phosphate groups. It's just astonishing
that such a critical clue was missed by the competition,
simply because they weren't rigorously focused
on the crystallographic data itself. It feeds
right into this paradox that defines her story,
the clash between her patient rigor and their
speculative speed. And her commitment to only
reporting proven facts was absolute. In May 1952,
after she recorded an asymmetrical X -ray image
of ADNA, she temporarily concluded that ADNA
was not a helix. Yes, and she and Gosling, they
famously drew up this satirical funeral notice
for the death of helical ADNA. They signed it
and sent it to Wilkins as a sort of dark scientific
joke. That anecdote brilliantly captures her
scientific philosophy. She even had a motto.
We are not going to speculate. We're going to
wait. We're going to let the spots on this photograph
tell us what the DNA structure is. And waiting
meant doing the grueling, complex mathematical
work. Throughout 1952, she and Gosling performed
this intensive Patterson function analysis on
their X -ray photographs. OK, let's unpack that
term for you listening. What is the Patterson
function analysis and why was it so incredibly
labor intensive in the 1950s? It's a very sophisticated
mathematical tool in crystallography. An X -ray
pattern, the spots on the film, is essentially
a map of how the electrons in the molecule scattered
the X -ray beam. Right. The Patterson function
is the technique you use to convert that scattering
pattern into a three -dimensional map of electron
density. In plain terms, it's how you turn the
abstract diffraction image into a concrete visual
representation of the molecule's shape and the
arrangement of its atoms. So it's the mathematical
process of turning this fuzzy photographic evidence
into clear structural coordinates. Precisely.
And in the 1950s, before powerful computers,
this required immense amounts of manual calculation.
It was brutal. It wasn't about guessing. It was
about mathematically deriving the coordinates
point by point. And this rigorous work produced
the resulting photographs, which of course included
the landmark Photo 51, which was actually captured
by her student, Gosling, under her direction.
Photographs that were so spectacular John Desmond
Bernal later called them amongst the most beautiful
x -ray photographs of any substance ever taken.
They were without any doubt the definitive empirical
evidence needed to solve the problem. So you
have this situation. Franklin is sitting on the
most beautiful, meticulously analyzed and definitive
data set in the world. And she's focused entirely
on the painstaking process of mathematical proof.
Meanwhile, up at the Cavendish Lab in Cambridge,
you have James Watson and Francis Crick. And
their approach is... completely different. They're
focused on model building a speculative, rapid
fire, trial and error approach. And the pace
of this race just accelerates dramatically in
January 1953 because Linus Pauling, the world's
leading chemist, was closing in on a solution
himself. Watson visits King's and he's carrying
a preprint of Pauling's latest draft, which proposed
an incorrect triple helix model. And Watson tries
to engage Franklin in a collaboration, which,
given their history and her complete dislike
of his speculative style, only infuriated her.
And this is the moment. The moment that cemented
the entire controversy. After this frustrating
encounter with Franklin, Watson retreats and
runs into Maurice Wilkins. And Wilkins, in a
moment of, well, frustration, and without Franklin's
knowledge or permission, shows Watson the crucial
BDNA image. He shows him photo 51. He shows him
photo 51. Watson, who understood the theory of
helis, immediately understood the visual significance
of that cross -shaped pattern. But the data transfer
didn't stop there, did it? No. The head of the
Cavendish lab, Lawrence Bragg, encourages Watson
and Crick to restart their model building now
that Pauling's error was known. And critical
to their success was getting access to Franklin's
detailed scientific notes. This is where the
MRC report comes in. Yes. Francis Crick receives
a copy of a Confidential Medical Research Council
Biophysics Committee report from December 1952.
And this report contained detailed, quantitative
crystallographic calculations derived directly
from Franklin and Gosling's data. It was provided
to him by his supervisor, Max Peretz, who had
served on the visiting committee that reviewed
the work at King's. This was essentially internal,
unpublished, proprietary data being shared without
permission. And that confidential report provided
two critical quantitative parameters that immediately
broke the deadlock for Crick. First, it decisively
confirmed the 34 Angstrom repeat distance of
the DNA structure. And an Angstrom, for context,
is a tiny unit of length. It's one ten billionth
of a meter. That 34 Angstrom measurement represented
the exact length of one complete turn of the
DNA helix. It was a precise, quantifiable fact.
It just narrowed the structural possibilities
immensely. And the second, perhaps even more
revealing piece of data, was that the structure
had C2 symmetry. This is the mathematical clue
that immediately told Crick the molecule must
contain two chains running in opposite directions,
anti -parallel strands. That C2 symmetry observation
was just huge for them. It was everything. If
they hadn't seen that precise mathematical symmetry
in her data, they could have wasted months, maybe
years, building incorrect models with three chains
or four chains or parallel chains. Franklin's
painstaking measurements provided the immediate
intellectual framework for the double helix.
But it's so important to remember that she was
converging on the structure independently. Her
notebooks show that by February 1953, she had
successfully reconciled her A DNA and B DNA data.
She had. She realized that the B form was the
true helical structure and that the A form was
simply an unwound version of it that appeared
in lower humidity. And she made a profound biological
realization as well. She noted that the structure
did not rely on the specific detailed order of
the bases. Meaning, as she put it, that an infinite
variety of nucleotide sequences would be possible.
This speaks directly to the mechanism of genetic
variability, an insight that was entirely her
own, derived from her data. She and Gosling actually
wrote a draft manuscript on March 17, 1953, confirming
that their data was fully consistent with a multi
-chain helix structure. And this was the day
before the news arrived at King's that the Cambridge
model had been completed. They were that close.
The key gap she hadn't yet bridged was the specific
complementary base pairing. the adenine -thymine
-guanine -cytosine lock -and -key mechanism.
That was the breakthrough Watson and Crick made
on February 28. Once they had Franklin's geometric
clues from the photo and the report, they rapidly
synthesized the final, correct structure. They
finished their physical model on March 7, 1953.
And the famed trio of papers appeared in the
journal Nature on April 25, 1953. The order of
publication was critical. Watson and Crick's
theoretical model was published first, framing
it as the discovery. And their acknowledgment
of Franklin and Wilkins was this muted, almost
throwaway footnote, stating they were merely
stimulated by general knowledge of Franklin and
Wilkins' unpublished contribution. General knowledge.
It's an incredible understatement. The detailed
articles by Wilkins and then by Franklin and
Gosling, the ones containing the actual definitive
X -ray data and Photo 51, were published second
and third. A deliberate placement. It made their
work appear to be supporting evidence for the
Cambridge theory rather than what it was, the
foundational empirical data that drove the discovery.
The ethical implications of that data sharing
have, of course, fueled decades of discussion.
Max Perutz later wrote to Science Magazine, trying
to excuse sharing the confidential MRC report.
Right. He claimed he was inexperienced and casual
in administrative matters. That's a pretty thin
excuse. Regardless of his intent, intellectual
property was shared without the creator's knowledge.
However, the popular narrative that Franklin
died completely unaware that her work had been
used, that's now being challenged. A 2023 analysis
of an unpublished 1953 Time magazine manuscript,
which was written in consultation with Franklin
herself, suggests the discovery was perceived
at the time as more of a joint effort. Right.
The manuscript actually stated Franklin was engaged
in checking the Cavendish model against her own
X -rays, which implies a degree of collaboration
in those final stages. And her former colleague,
Raymond Gosling, he later asserted that Franklin
did know her work had been used before she died.
So this suggests that while the initial sharing
of data was definitely unauthorized, the true
relationship between the scientists regarding
the final model was perhaps more cooperative
in those final few weeks than the sensationalist
race narrative suggests. What remains undeniable,
absolutely undeniable, is that without Franklin's
unparalleled technical rigor, her unique innovation
with humidity control, and her precise measurements.
The C2 symmetry, the 34 Angstrom repeat. All
of it. Without that, the double helix model would
have been a premature, incorrect speculation.
Her data forced accuracy onto the world's most
important biological structure. So given that
intense, competitive, and ultimately frustrating
environment at King's College, Franklin made
a necessary and, I think, a critical move. She
left. In mid -March 1953, she moved to Birkbeck
College, recruited by the crystallographer John
Desmond Bernal. She moved from the well -funded,
established world of King's to a much more modest
institution. And her famous quote just captures
this perfectly. She said she was moving from
a talus to the slums, but pleasanter all the
same. It really reflects the difficult, cramped
physical conditions at Birkbeck, but the significantly
improved collegial and supportive professional
environment she found there. That intellectual
and psychological relief must have been immense
for her. Bernal was known for actively promoting
female crystallographers and for fostering a
cooperative environment. A stark contrast to
the restrictive, competitive, and isolating atmosphere
she had just left behind. It's interesting, though.
Bernal insisted she switch her research focus
entirely and stop working on nucleic acids. Right.
But despite that instruction, she co -published
one last paper with Gosling and Nature in July
1953. She did. It confirmed that ADNA also had
a double helix structure. up on the Cambridge
announcement. It was really a final closing of
the chapter, asserting her own empirical proof.
But this shift in focus launched her into her
second major field of scientific contribution,
structural virology. At Birkbeck, she established
her own research group and pioneered work on
the molecular structures of viruses. Specifically,
the tobacco mosaic virus, or TMV. Which is an
RNA virus. And it was a notoriously difficult
subject for x -ray analysis. A perfect fit for
Franklin. given her success with amorphous carbon
and coal. She began a highly successful and longstanding
collaboration with Aaron Klug, who had just earned
his Ph .D. and joined Birkbeck in 1953. And this
really marks the beginning of modern structural
virology. Her key findings on TMV started rolling
out in 1955. She definitively proved that all
TMV virus particles were of the same precise
length, an observation that contradicted the
established eminent virologist Norman Puri. But
what she proved was empirically correct using
her perfected x -ray techniques. This wasn't
just a technical correction. It was a fundamental
shift in understanding how viruses assemble and
reproduce. She showed the uniformity and the
rigid structure of these particles. Her work
deepened really quickly. In 1956, working with
Kenneth Holmes, her group discovered that the
protein covering of TMV was made of protein molecules
arranged not haphazardly, but in a tight helix.
And then the very next year, collaborating with
Donald Kaspar, they made the definitive structural
finding. The RNA inside the TMV is wound along
the inner surface of the hollow protein cylinder.
This explained the full molecular architecture
of the virus. That is just an immense body of
work to complete in just a few years. It is.
And it connects directly back to her early expertise.
She moved from solving the messy structure of
carbon to solving the equally messy, complex
biological structure of the virus. And her reputation
was growing rapidly on the strength of this work.
In 1957, she secured a massive grant, $10 ,000.
from the U .S. Public Health Service of the NIH
to research the poliovirus structure. This was
the largest research fund Birkbeck had ever received
at that time, a real testament to her standing
in the global scientific community. Tragically,
this final ambitious project on the poliovirus
was forced to end because of her rapidly failing
health. Franklin was diagnosed with ovarian cancer
in mid -1956. While exposure to X -ray radiation
is always considered a possible factor for scientists
in the 1950s, it's also noted that gynecological
cancer incidence is particularly high among women
of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, which was her background.
The dedication she showed even while she was
undergoing aggressive treatment is just staggering.
Her group published seven papers in 1956. And
six more in 1957. She literally worked until
she could no longer stand. Her final professional
engagement was highly symbolic. She was invited
to build a five -foot -high model of the tobacco
mosaic virus for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair,
Expo 58. And she used these mundane materials,
table tennis balls, plastic bicycle handlebar
grips, to create this stunning visual representation
of the helical virus structure she had discovered.
That exhibit opened on April 17, 1958. The day
after she died. Franklin passed away on April
16, 1958, at the age of 37, of bronchopneumonia,
secondary carcinomatosis, and ovarian cancer.
And that term, secondary carcinomatosis, just
for clarity, it refers to the widespread growth
of cancerous tumors that originated elsewhere.
It means the ovarian cancer had metastasized
throughout her body. But despite that horrific
diagnosis, her final years were marked by this
just incredible scientific output. In a final
poignant note about her personal legacy, her
colleague and collaborator, Aaron Klug, was the
principal beneficiary in her will. He received
3 ,000 pounds and her Austin car. It speaks volumes
about the close working relationship and friendship
that had developed between them. So Franklin's
untimely death in 1958, combined with the very
stringent rules of the Nobel Committee, permanently
cemented the controversy surrounding the 1962
Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine, which was awarded to Crick, Watson,
and Wilkins. The primary reason for her exclusion
is simple, but it's absolute. The Nobel rules
prohibit posthumous nominations. They do not
award it to the dead. And the prize can also
only be divided among a maximum of three people.
So she was ineligible simply because she had
died four years prior to the announcement. And
there's another factor. The Nobel Committee often
waits until a scientific discovery has been thoroughly,
undeniably proven and applied. Right. During
her lifetime, the DNA structure was still contested
in some circles. The committee waited until significant
experimental proof of replication was established.
Specifically, the Miselson -Stahl experiment.
Exactly, which was established between 1958 and
1961. This final definitive evidence provided
the necessary impetus for the 1962 award. But
the irony, the profound irony. doesn't stop with
DNA. Her former colleague, Aaron Klug, the principal
beneficiary in her will, he went on to win the
1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. And his award
was for his work on virus structures and nucleic
acid protein complexes. The exact field Franklin
pioneered and introduced him to at Birkbeck.
It is highly plausible, if not nearly certain,
that had she lived, she would have shared the
1982 Nobel Prize with Klug for her pioneering
work in structural virology. It would have cemented
a second. Nobel -level contribution to science.
The controversy that really dominated the narrative
for decades, though, it wasn't ignited by the
Nobel exclusion itself. It was ignited by James
Watson's memoir, The Double Helix, which was
published in 1968. And that book is often cited
as the root of what Franklin's own sister later
dubbed the Rosalind industry. of controversy
watson's memoir was immensely popular but it
was also highly subjective while he praised her
intellect he simultaneously portrayed her as
quote difficult to work with and famously he
repeatedly referred to her by the nickname she
hated rosie a name that was used behind her back
at kings never to her face And we have to analyze
why that narrative was so effective. It defined
her legacy for a whole generation as this brilliant
but temperamental, almost shrewish counterpoint
to the swashbuckling model builders. Francis
Crick himself later admitted that he and Watson
adopted a patronizing attitude toward her while
they were at King's. And this narrative immediately
sparked criticism. The biographer Anne Sayre
published a counter -narrative in 1975, arguing
that Franklin was a victim of institutional sexism
at King's. And she cited details like the segregated
dining facilities for men and women and her father's
initial resistance to her academic path. However,
this narrative of severe, pervasive sexism is
itself a complex historical debate. It is. Franklin's
sister, Jennifer Glenn, and colleagues like Crick
and J .D. Bernal, they disputed this. They stated
her parents fully supported her career and insisted
Franklin was never a feminist in the social activist
sense. They argued that Watson's one -sided personal
memoir was the true culprit in generating the
controversy, not necessarily the entire structure
of the institution alone. But regardless of whether
the institutional culture was purely sexist or
just fundamentally competitive and poorly managed.
And it was likely a toxic mix of all three. It
was, but the historical consensus has recognized
the inadequacy of the original credit given to
her. The Nobel was awarded for the body of work
on nucleic acids, yet the essential empirical
foundation was Franklin's crystallographic data.
And recognizing this profound historical oversight,
there has been a massive wave of posthumous recognition
aimed at correcting the public record. Right.
To ensure her enduring impact is fully recognized.
And this correction is visible globally now.
In 2004, The Finch University of Health Sciences
in Illinois was renamed the Rosalind Franklin
University of Medicine and Science. And they
actually use a stylized version of Photo 51 as
the university's official logo. It's right there.
The European Space Agency named its ExoMars rover
after her in 2019. Numerous academic buildings
bear her name at universities all across the
UK, cementing her as a scientific icon for future
generations. The Royal Society, which is the
UK's National Academy of Science, established
the prestigious Rosalind Franklin Award. in 2003.
It comes with a significant grant and is specifically
aimed at supporting and recognizing women in
the natural sciences. And perhaps the most symbolic
act of correction happened recently in Cambridge.
In 2023, the famous blue plaque on the Eagle
Pub. The alleged site where Watson and Crick
announced they had found the secret of life.
That plaque was physically replaced. The new
plaque now includes her name. right alongside
Crick and Watson, finally correcting the historical
omission at the location most associated with
the discovery. Her legacy is now successfully
crossing from academia into popular culture.
She appears in plays, documentaries, even major
commercial advertisements, ensuring that the
full breadth of her contribution, not just to
DNA, but to structural virology and carbon science,
is finally becoming visible to the public. So
if we synthesize this deep dive, we see a career
that was just remarkably successful across multiple
Very difficult disciplines. Right. She established
the foundational, lasting structure of coal and
graphite. She pioneered the molecular architecture
of RNA viruses, establishing the field that led
directly to a future Nobel Prize for her colleague.
And, of course, she provided the definitive empirical
evidence that cracked the structure of DNA. She
was a scientist who was defined by her scientific
philosophy. She was fiercely committed to rigorous
experimental data over theoretical speculation.
Her mantra was always to let the spots on the
photograph speak for themselves. And that rigor
forced accuracy onto one of the 20th century's
most significant discoveries. And here's the
profound paradox that really defines her narrative.
Franklin's brilliant adherence to absolute empirical
proof ensured that the theoretical double helix
model developed by Watson and Crick was fundamentally
accurate. This leads us to a final provocative
thought for you to consider. When discussing
her worldview back in 1940, Franklin rejected
the concept of faith in an afterlife. She stated
that her own faith lay entirely in the future
and fate of our successors. Given the immense
infrastructure, the scientific awards, and the
widespread cultural recognition, now universally
correcting the historical oversight. Do you feel
that her faith in the enduring legacy of scientific
discovery was ultimately and quite spectacularly
vindicated? Her story is a vital lesson in the
complexities of scientific credit, institutional
culture, and personal dynamics in the mid -20th
century. If you want to dive deeper into the
dynamics of that race, start with the specific
technical details of Photo 51 and the mathematical
debates it continues to spark.