WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.899 You know, usually when we look at a photograph 00:00:01.899 --> 00:00:06.000 that changed the world, there's this expectation 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.160 of clarity. Right. Yeah. Like it should be obvious. 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:11.699 Exactly. Like a portrait of a historical figure 00:00:11.699 --> 00:00:14.460 or a snapshot of the moon landing. You look at 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:18.519 the image and there it is. The subject is undeniable. 00:00:18.679 --> 00:00:20.500 It's obvious to anyone who's seen it. Oh, because 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:22.460 the visual is supposed to tell the whole story 00:00:22.460 --> 00:00:25.100 instantly. Well, it's supposed to be an objective, 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:28.179 recognizable record of a moment in time. But 00:00:28.179 --> 00:00:30.980 then you step into the world of molecular biology, 00:00:31.079 --> 00:00:33.600 and suddenly that comforting clarity is just 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:35.979 gone. Oh, completely gone. Yeah. If you look 00:00:35.979 --> 00:00:38.799 at one of the most famous consequential images 00:00:38.799 --> 00:00:41.420 in the entire history of science, it honestly 00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:45.469 just looks like a a murky gray smudge on a dirty 00:00:45.469 --> 00:00:48.030 camera lens. It really does. Maybe if you squint, 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:51.170 it's like a blurry letter X inside a faint dark 00:00:51.170 --> 00:00:53.409 circle. Right, and to the untrained eye, it is 00:00:53.409 --> 00:00:56.670 the absolute definition of diagnostic muddy waters. 00:00:56.789 --> 00:00:59.210 I mean, it literally looks like a mistake. But 00:00:59.210 --> 00:01:01.590 to someone who actually knows how to read the 00:01:01.590 --> 00:01:04.390 mathematics hidden inside those shadows, that 00:01:04.390 --> 00:01:07.670 blurry X is the literal blueprint of life itself. 00:01:07.930 --> 00:01:11.670 And that image is the legendary photo 51. The 00:01:11.670 --> 00:01:14.269 x -ray diffraction image that definitively proved 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:17.609 DNA is a double helix. A big one. The big one. 00:01:17.890 --> 00:01:20.609 And chances are, you already know the names associated 00:01:20.609 --> 00:01:23.150 with decoding that famous shape. You know James 00:01:23.150 --> 00:01:26.129 Watson. You know Francis Crick. Right. But today 00:01:26.129 --> 00:01:29.010 we are taking a deep dive into the story of the 00:01:29.010 --> 00:01:32.090 person whose meticulous data and whose team's 00:01:32.090 --> 00:01:34.730 photograph actually made that discovery possible. 00:01:35.049 --> 00:01:37.010 We are exploring a name you almost certainly 00:01:37.010 --> 00:01:39.790 recognize, but a story you probably only think 00:01:39.790 --> 00:01:42.370 you know. And that is Rosalind Franklin. And 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:44.890 to do that, we are pulling from a fantastic, 00:01:45.469 --> 00:01:47.989 incredibly comprehensive historical and biographical 00:01:47.989 --> 00:01:50.849 compilation. It details her entire life, her 00:01:50.849 --> 00:01:53.810 personal letters, her lab notebooks, and just 00:01:53.810 --> 00:01:56.349 the broader context of mid -century scientific 00:01:56.349 --> 00:01:58.530 research. OK, let's unpack this. Our mission 00:01:58.530 --> 00:02:00.590 for this deep dive is to rescue Rosalind Franklin 00:02:00.590 --> 00:02:03.430 from simply being a flattened historical footnote. 00:02:03.469 --> 00:02:06.930 Yeah, a caricature. Exactly. For decades. She 00:02:06.930 --> 00:02:10.610 has been tightly boxed in as either the wronged 00:02:10.610 --> 00:02:16.229 heroine or the dark lady of DNA. We want to discover 00:02:16.229 --> 00:02:19.349 the brilliant, witty, and fiercely meticulous 00:02:19.349 --> 00:02:21.210 physical chemist behind that pervasive myth. 00:02:22.090 --> 00:02:24.129 And beyond the drama, we want to understand the 00:02:24.129 --> 00:02:26.629 literal nuts and bolts of how she mapped the 00:02:26.629 --> 00:02:29.139 secret of life. If we connect this to the bigger 00:02:29.139 --> 00:02:31.900 picture, Franklin's story is a profound master 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:34.360 class in how science actually works in practice. 00:02:34.740 --> 00:02:38.000 How so? Well, society loves the myth of the solitary 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:40.039 genius, right? Having a Thed in Eureka moment 00:02:40.039 --> 00:02:42.039 in a vacuum. Oh sure, the light bulb going off. 00:02:42.180 --> 00:02:45.159 Right, but the reality is a messy, intensely 00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:48.300 human endeavor. It's full of overlapping research, 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:50.960 agonizingly slow data gathering, and you know, 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:53.580 inevitably clashing personalities. And long before 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:55.879 those personalities clashed over biology, she 00:02:55.879 --> 00:02:57.680 was already proving her genius in a in a completely 00:02:57.680 --> 00:02:59.539 different field. Yeah, people forget about her 00:02:59.539 --> 00:03:03.340 early life. They really do. Born in 1920 into 00:03:03.340 --> 00:03:06.020 an affluent Jewish family in London, she was 00:03:06.020 --> 00:03:08.960 recognized incredibly early as a childhood math 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:11.159 prodigy. I mean, we're talking about a kid who 00:03:11.159 --> 00:03:14.000 literally did complex arithmetic for pleasure 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.639 at age six. Which is just wild. It is, but... 00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:21.659 Before she could map the microscopic blueprint 00:03:21.659 --> 00:03:24.759 of human genetics, she had to master the microscopic 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:27.439 architecture of fuel. Right, because during World 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:30.199 War II, she fulfilled her national service by 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:32.780 taking a position at the British Coal Utilization 00:03:32.780 --> 00:03:35.139 Research Association. So she wasn't just doing 00:03:35.139 --> 00:03:37.539 administrative work? No, not at all. She wasn't 00:03:37.539 --> 00:03:40.060 just doing basic chemistry either. She was tasked 00:03:40.060 --> 00:03:43.020 with studying the invisible microscopic porosity 00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:46.020 of coal. So she used helium gases to determine 00:03:46.020 --> 00:03:48.500 the precise density of different types of... 00:03:48.009 --> 00:03:50.409 Right? Exactly. She was figuring out the mathematical 00:03:50.409 --> 00:03:52.849 relationship between the tiny invisible constrictions 00:03:52.849 --> 00:03:55.129 in the pores of the coal and how permeable the 00:03:55.129 --> 00:03:57.030 material actually was. Yeah, trying to see what 00:03:57.030 --> 00:03:58.710 could get through and what couldn't. It reminds 00:03:58.710 --> 00:04:02.409 me of like a bouncer at a really exclusive microscopic 00:04:02.409 --> 00:04:05.280 club. Huh. That's a good way to put it. She was 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:07.659 observing exactly which molecules were allowed 00:04:07.659 --> 00:04:10.479 to enter or exit those microscopic doors as the 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:13.060 temperature changed. And she ultimately proved 00:04:13.060 --> 00:04:16.040 that substances were expelled from the coal in 00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:18.279 strict order of their molecular size as things 00:04:18.279 --> 00:04:20.779 heated up. And this work accurately predicted 00:04:20.779 --> 00:04:22.939 how different coals would perform for specific 00:04:22.939 --> 00:04:25.899 fuel purposes. And crucially, for the production 00:04:25.899 --> 00:04:29.120 of wartime devices like gas masks, which rely 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:32.339 on carbon to filter out toxins. So this wasn't 00:04:32.339 --> 00:04:35.000 just some abstract academic exercise. I mean, 00:04:35.259 --> 00:04:37.620 it had immediate survival implications for a 00:04:37.620 --> 00:04:40.980 nation at war. That is incredible context. Yeah. 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:44.680 But how does coal filtering gas translate to 00:04:44.680 --> 00:04:46.720 the rest of her career, like moving to biology? 00:04:46.910 --> 00:04:48.949 Well, from a career perspective, this intensive 00:04:48.949 --> 00:04:51.269 wartime research laid the foundational data for 00:04:51.269 --> 00:04:54.129 her PhD at Cambridge. It gave her a lifelong, 00:04:54.569 --> 00:04:56.649 highly specialized expertise in something called 00:04:56.649 --> 00:04:59.610 the physical chemistry of solid organic colloids. 00:04:59.790 --> 00:05:02.050 Wait, let me pause you there. Solid organic colloids. 00:05:02.069 --> 00:05:04.410 That sounds like serious textbook jargon. What 00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:06.810 exactly are we talking about? Right, sorry. So 00:05:06.810 --> 00:05:09.750 a colloid is essentially a substance where microscopic 00:05:09.750 --> 00:05:13.110 particles of one material are suspended inside 00:05:13.110 --> 00:05:16.670 another. Okay. When we talk about solid organic 00:05:16.670 --> 00:05:19.790 colloids in Franklin's case, we are talking about 00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:23.430 carbon -based solids like coal or graphite that 00:05:23.430 --> 00:05:26.550 don't have a simple neat uniform structure. So 00:05:26.550 --> 00:05:29.339 they're messy. Very messy. They are solid, but 00:05:29.339 --> 00:05:31.800 they are filled with these complex microscopic 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:35.300 networks and pores. She became an absolute master 00:05:35.300 --> 00:05:37.819 of understanding how carbon structures itself 00:05:37.819 --> 00:05:41.180 on an invisible level. But to truly master the 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:43.160 techniques needed to see that invisible world, 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:45.480 she eventually had to leave post -war England, 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:48.300 right? Yes. In 1947, she packed up and moved 00:05:48.300 --> 00:05:51.079 to the vibrant, intellectually stimulating Laboratories 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:53.339 of Paris. And she accepted a position at Jacques 00:05:53.339 --> 00:05:55.199 Meringue's lab at the State Chemical Services. 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:57.860 Her time in France is where we really see her 00:05:57.860 --> 00:06:00.920 personality blossom outside the rigid confines 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:03.319 of the British academic system. She absolutely 00:06:03.319 --> 00:06:05.399 fell in love with the French lifestyle. Yeah, 00:06:05.399 --> 00:06:08.740 she embraced the food, the culture, the intense 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:10.959 intellectual debates over dinner. She went on 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:13.379 these incredibly daring treks in the Alps. At 00:06:13.379 --> 00:06:15.639 one point, she actually slipped off a steep slope 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:18.240 and nearly lost her life. Which is terrifying. 00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:20.879 Right. And she wrote letters home expressing 00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:23.620 how the French way of life was vastly superior 00:06:23.620 --> 00:06:26.319 to the stiff English complacency she was used 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:28.560 to. She definitely had strong opinions. She did. 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:31.300 But inside the lab, she was learning a highly 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:33.540 specialized skill that would change history, 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:37.040 the art of x -ray crystallography. And Merring 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.680 wasn't just teaching her standard crystallography. 00:06:39.939 --> 00:06:43.639 He was pioneering the application of x -ray diffraction 00:06:43.639 --> 00:06:46.420 to amorphous substances. Amorphous. Yeah, things 00:06:46.420 --> 00:06:49.060 like coal, rayon, and other messy carbonaceous 00:06:49.060 --> 00:06:51.180 materials. Now wait, I have to push back on this 00:06:51.180 --> 00:06:53.120 for a second. Because my basic understanding 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:54.899 of crystallography is that you need a crystal. 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:57.879 Right. Like a neat, orderly, repeating geometric 00:06:57.879 --> 00:07:00.019 shape, like a diamond or a grain of salt. Yeah. 00:07:00.259 --> 00:07:03.220 How do you take a clear X -ray picture of something 00:07:03.220 --> 00:07:05.019 that is amorphous, something that essentially 00:07:05.019 --> 00:07:07.920 has no regular repeating shape? What's fascinating 00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:10.680 here is that you've hit on the exact reason Franklin 00:07:10.680 --> 00:07:13.220 was so uniquely positioned for her later work. 00:07:13.259 --> 00:07:16.360 Oh, really? Yeah. Taking an X -ray diffraction 00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:19.220 image of a perfect crystal is relatively straightforward. 00:07:19.629 --> 00:07:22.430 You shoot an x -ray beam at the crystal, the 00:07:22.430 --> 00:07:24.730 rays bounce off the perfectly regular atomic 00:07:24.730 --> 00:07:27.810 planes, and they hit photographic film to give 00:07:27.810 --> 00:07:30.670 you a clean, predictable pattern of spots. Makes 00:07:30.670 --> 00:07:33.569 sense. But, amorphous substances are inherently 00:07:33.569 --> 00:07:36.189 chaotic. They don't have that perfect repeating 00:07:36.189 --> 00:07:38.709 order. When you shoot x -rays through them, you 00:07:38.709 --> 00:07:40.970 don't get a neat grid of dots. You get these 00:07:40.970 --> 00:07:44.350 diffuse, blurry, highly complex halos and smears 00:07:44.350 --> 00:07:46.810 on the film. So it's like trying to map the architectural 00:07:46.810 --> 00:07:48.889 structure of a cloud instead of a brick wall. 00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:52.040 That cloud analogy is spot on. Franklin had to 00:07:52.040 --> 00:07:54.319 learn the incredibly difficult mathematics required 00:07:54.319 --> 00:07:57.399 to interpret those blurry, chaotic shadows. Wow. 00:07:57.639 --> 00:07:59.699 She had to mathematically correct for the finite 00:07:59.699 --> 00:08:02.220 height of the x -ray beam, interpret the diffuse 00:08:02.220 --> 00:08:04.519 scattering of light. I mean, she was quite literally 00:08:04.519 --> 00:08:07.240 wringing geometric structure out of total physical 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:10.300 chaos. That sounds impossible. And that specific, 00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:12.860 highly difficult skill set is what made her the 00:08:12.860 --> 00:08:15.120 singular perfect person to eventually look at 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:19.259 biological fibers. Biological materials are notoriously 00:08:19.259 --> 00:08:22.959 messy, pliable, and incredibly difficult to crystallize. 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:25.540 But mapping the chaotic structure of coal and 00:08:25.540 --> 00:08:27.579 graphite was just the warm -up, right? Exactly. 00:08:27.860 --> 00:08:30.759 The ultimate test of this unique skill wasn't 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:33.679 going to be fuel. It was going to be the messy, 00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:37.120 chaotic fibers of human genetics. And that meant 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:39.240 returning to London. Back to the stiff English 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:42.730 complacency. Yeah. In 1951, she is recruited 00:08:42.730 --> 00:08:45.250 to King's College London to work in the Medical 00:08:45.250 --> 00:08:48.629 Research Council's biophysics unit. She is stepping 00:08:48.629 --> 00:08:51.549 straight into a scientific gold rush because 00:08:51.549 --> 00:08:53.909 everyone in the field wants to crack the elusive 00:08:53.909 --> 00:08:56.370 structure of DNA. Oh, it was a massive race. 00:08:56.529 --> 00:08:59.049 But she's also stepping blindly into a legendary 00:08:59.049 --> 00:09:01.529 personality clash. Right. The director of the 00:09:01.529 --> 00:09:04.350 unit, John Randall, made a fatal compounding 00:09:04.350 --> 00:09:06.309 error in his administrative communication. What 00:09:06.309 --> 00:09:08.970 did he do? He sent a letter explicitly assigning 00:09:08.970 --> 00:09:12.070 Franklin to work on analyzing DNA fibers and 00:09:12.070 --> 00:09:14.389 assigned a graduate student named Raymond Gosling 00:09:14.389 --> 00:09:17.370 to be her assistant. The problem is that he completely 00:09:17.370 --> 00:09:20.009 failed to communicate this restructuring to Maurice 00:09:20.009 --> 00:09:22.690 Wilkins. And Wilkins was another senior researcher 00:09:22.690 --> 00:09:24.789 there. Yeah, who had already been pioneering 00:09:24.789 --> 00:09:28.110 DNA diffraction work at the very same lab. Right. 00:09:28.289 --> 00:09:30.129 And Wilkins was actually away on holiday when 00:09:30.129 --> 00:09:33.519 Randall set all this up. So Wilkins comes back 00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:36.240 expecting Franklin to be a highly skilled technician 00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:38.620 joining his team Well, Franklin has a formal 00:09:38.620 --> 00:09:41.200 letter from the director essentially saying you 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:43.460 are an independent investigator in charge of 00:09:43.460 --> 00:09:46.879 this project It was an absolute recipe for disaster 00:09:47.129 --> 00:09:50.269 and that tension was instantly amplified by their 00:09:50.269 --> 00:09:52.929 totally opposite personalities. Their fundamental 00:09:52.929 --> 00:09:54.929 communication styles could not have been more 00:09:54.929 --> 00:09:57.850 different. Wilkins was notoriously shy, he spoke 00:09:57.850 --> 00:10:00.870 slowly, he was highly calculating with his words, 00:10:01.169 --> 00:10:03.230 and he actively avoided looking people directly 00:10:03.230 --> 00:10:06.470 in the eye, finding it too confrontational. And 00:10:06.470 --> 00:10:09.250 Franklin was a polar opposite. She was concise, 00:10:09.549 --> 00:10:11.850 she was impatient with slow talkers, she was 00:10:11.850 --> 00:10:14.690 highly direct, and she had a habit of looking 00:10:14.690 --> 00:10:17.389 people intensely. right in the eye when she debated 00:10:17.389 --> 00:10:20.070 them. Which really threw people off. Yeah, it 00:10:20.070 --> 00:10:22.549 unnerved her male colleagues who were used to 00:10:22.549 --> 00:10:25.950 a more demure deferential dynamic. So you have 00:10:25.950 --> 00:10:28.750 this massive fundamental friction from day one. 00:10:29.450 --> 00:10:32.190 But Franklin ignores the office politics, puts 00:10:32.190 --> 00:10:34.409 her head down, and goes to work with Gosling. 00:10:34.970 --> 00:10:37.429 And she brings her physical chemistry genius 00:10:37.429 --> 00:10:41.039 to the equipment itself. She took the micro camera 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:43.659 that Wilkins had ordered before she arrived and 00:10:43.659 --> 00:10:45.980 she rigorously re -engineered it. How did she 00:10:45.980 --> 00:10:48.080 change it? Well, the critical innovation she 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:50.480 brought to King's College was designing a camera 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:53.100 chamber where she could precisely control the 00:10:53.100 --> 00:10:55.919 humidity around the DNA sample using different 00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:57.980 saturated salt solutions. Here's where it gets 00:10:57.980 --> 00:11:00.679 really interesting. DNA isn't a static rock. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:03.600 It's a biological molecule. It changes depending 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:05.909 on its environment. By controlling the humidity 00:11:05.909 --> 00:11:09.470 using those salts, Franklin was essentially forcing 00:11:09.470 --> 00:11:12.450 the DNA to pose under perfect studio lighting. 00:11:13.009 --> 00:11:15.029 She discovered that DNA could actually exist 00:11:15.029 --> 00:11:18.629 in two entirely distinct structural forms, depending 00:11:18.629 --> 00:11:21.129 on how much water it absorbed. When she kept 00:11:21.129 --> 00:11:25.309 the humidity high, above 75%, the DNA fiber stretched 00:11:25.309 --> 00:11:28.389 out and soaked up the water. It became long and 00:11:28.389 --> 00:11:31.509 thin. She called this the wet or bee form. Right, 00:11:31.590 --> 00:11:33.720 the bee form. But when she dried the chamber 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:36.240 out, the DNA contracted. It became short and 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:38.860 fat, which she called the crystalline, or A, 00:11:38.960 --> 00:11:41.580 form. And separating these two forms was a monumental 00:11:41.580 --> 00:11:44.429 breakthrough. Before she instituted this humidity 00:11:44.429 --> 00:11:46.769 control, researchers had been taking x -rays 00:11:46.769 --> 00:11:48.990 of DNA that was a messy mixture of both forms. 00:11:49.070 --> 00:11:51.909 Which just gives you a blur. Exactly. It resulted 00:11:51.909 --> 00:11:54.590 in a confused, overlapping smudge of a picture. 00:11:55.149 --> 00:11:57.809 By separating them into pure A and pure B samples, 00:11:58.110 --> 00:12:00.490 she finally brought the molecule into sharp mathematical 00:12:00.490 --> 00:12:02.769 focus. Because the interpersonal tension with 00:12:02.769 --> 00:12:05.409 Wilkins had become so toxic, the director officially 00:12:05.409 --> 00:12:07.990 split the DNA work between them. Wilkins took 00:12:07.990 --> 00:12:10.850 the wet B form, and Franklin took the data -rich 00:12:10.850 --> 00:12:13.649 crystalline A form. And we have to highlight 00:12:13.649 --> 00:12:16.309 a fantastic anecdote from the sources regarding 00:12:16.309 --> 00:12:18.590 her sense of humor during this split. Oh, the 00:12:18.590 --> 00:12:22.269 funeral notice. Yes. In the summer of 1952, Franklin 00:12:22.269 --> 00:12:25.049 was temporarily unconvinced that her crystalline 00:12:25.049 --> 00:12:28.169 A -form was actually a helix. Her data wasn't 00:12:28.169 --> 00:12:30.799 showing it clearly yet. Wilkins, on the other 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:33.799 hand, firmly believed everything in biology was 00:12:33.799 --> 00:12:37.100 a helix. So what did she do? As a highly targeted 00:12:37.100 --> 00:12:39.639 practical joke on Wilkins, Franklin and her student 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:42.539 Gosling actually wrote up a satirical, black 00:12:42.539 --> 00:12:45.159 -bordered funeral notice. Oh, I love this detail. 00:12:45.419 --> 00:12:48.220 The card literally read, it is with great regret 00:12:48.220 --> 00:12:50.960 that we have to announce the death of DNA helix 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:53.720 crystalline. Death followed a protracted illness. 00:12:54.139 --> 00:12:56.360 A memorial service will be held next Monday or 00:12:56.360 --> 00:12:58.820 Tuesday. It's so good. It completely punctures 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:01.789 the m - that she was this joyless hyper -serious 00:13:01.789 --> 00:13:04.710 drone. She had a biting brilliant wit. It definitely 00:13:04.710 --> 00:13:06.870 highlights her personality, but more importantly, 00:13:07.230 --> 00:13:09.629 it underscores her core scientific philosophy. 00:13:10.009 --> 00:13:12.809 She was fiercely dedicated to pure experimental 00:13:12.809 --> 00:13:15.309 data over speculative theoretical model building. 00:13:15.429 --> 00:13:18.269 Right, no guessing. Exactly. While other scientists 00:13:18.269 --> 00:13:20.409 were eager to rush ahead and guess the structure, 00:13:20.870 --> 00:13:23.529 her steadfast attitude was, we are going to let 00:13:23.529 --> 00:13:25.809 the spots on this photograph tell us what the 00:13:25.809 --> 00:13:28.610 structure is. She absolutely refused to build 00:13:28.610 --> 00:13:31.049 a model until the math dictated it. But while 00:13:31.049 --> 00:13:33.149 she was meticulously calculating those spots 00:13:33.149 --> 00:13:37.110 in London, a very different Highly speculative 00:13:37.110 --> 00:13:39.470 approach was happening over at Cambridge University. 00:13:39.610 --> 00:13:42.470 Yes, a totally different vibe. James Watson and 00:13:42.470 --> 00:13:44.909 Francis Crick were in a frantic race to build 00:13:44.909 --> 00:13:47.649 the ultimate theoretical model out of wire and 00:13:47.649 --> 00:13:50.590 metal plates. And this brings us to the 1953 00:13:50.590 --> 00:13:53.830 climax, which is arguably the most famous controversy 00:13:53.830 --> 00:13:56.610 in modern biology. To understand this controversy, 00:13:56.789 --> 00:14:00.350 we need to lay out the events of early 1953 neutrally, 00:14:00.570 --> 00:14:02.690 based firmly on the historical record. Okay, 00:14:02.710 --> 00:14:04.789 let's do it. In January of that year, Watson 00:14:04.789 --> 00:14:08.029 visited King's College. Wilkins, who was commiserating 00:14:08.029 --> 00:14:10.610 with Watson over some shared frustrations regarding 00:14:10.610 --> 00:14:13.870 Franklin, showed Watson the now legendary photo 00:14:13.870 --> 00:14:17.110 51. Which was her team's photo. Right, the incredibly 00:14:17.110 --> 00:14:19.809 clear x -ray diffraction image of the B -form 00:14:19.809 --> 00:14:22.269 DNA, which had been taken under Franklin's supervision 00:14:22.269 --> 00:14:25.100 by Raymond Gosling. Watson famously wrote years 00:14:25.100 --> 00:14:28.159 later that seeing that specific image made his 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:31.740 jaw fall open and his pulse race. The dramatic 00:14:31.740 --> 00:14:34.659 cross shape of the X pattern clearly screened 00:14:34.659 --> 00:14:37.529 helix. But it wasn't just the photograph that 00:14:37.529 --> 00:14:40.110 helped Cambridge crack the code. No. Over in 00:14:40.110 --> 00:14:42.909 Ambridge, Crick's thesis advisor, Max Peretz, 00:14:43.090 --> 00:14:45.409 had obtained a copy of a medical research council 00:14:45.409 --> 00:14:48.389 report. Wait, how? It was a routine report from 00:14:48.389 --> 00:14:50.730 a biophysics committee visit to King's College, 00:14:51.090 --> 00:14:53.710 but it contained a summary of Franklin's crucial 00:14:53.710 --> 00:14:56.950 unpublished crystallographic calculations. Peretz 00:14:56.950 --> 00:14:58.750 handed this report over to Crick. Wait, let's 00:14:58.750 --> 00:15:00.190 slow down and look at what was actually in that 00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:02.029 report because this is where the pure biology 00:15:02.029 --> 00:15:04.909 turns into. heavy math. Sure. The sources mention 00:15:04.909 --> 00:15:07.769 the report confirmed the 24 angstrom repeat distance. 00:15:08.450 --> 00:15:10.610 What exactly is an angstrom and what does a repeat 00:15:10.610 --> 00:15:13.009 distance look like on a microscopic level? An 00:15:13.009 --> 00:15:15.509 angstrom is a unit of measurement used to express 00:15:15.509 --> 00:15:19.049 the sizes of atoms and molecules. It is one 10 00:15:19.049 --> 00:15:22.149 billionth of a meter, unfathomably small. The 00:15:22.149 --> 00:15:25.330 repeat distance of 34 angstroms essentially told 00:15:25.330 --> 00:15:28.389 them the exact pitch of the spiral staircase. 00:15:28.929 --> 00:15:30.769 It told them exactly how much vertical space 00:15:30.769 --> 00:15:34.350 the DNA helix takes to make one complete 360 00:15:34.350 --> 00:15:36.769 degree twist. OK, that makes sense. You need 00:15:36.769 --> 00:15:39.110 to know how steep the stairs are before you build 00:15:39.110 --> 00:15:41.830 the staircase. Exactly. But the report also established 00:15:41.830 --> 00:15:45.480 that the structure had C2 symmetry. Now, I know 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:47.259 what symmetry is when I look in a mirror, but 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:50.840 how does a math term like C2 symmetry tell a 00:15:50.840 --> 00:15:54.360 biologist how to build a model? Imagine two identical 00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:56.879 spiral staircases placed side by side. Okay, 00:15:56.940 --> 00:15:59.899 I'm picturing it. If you rotate the entire structure 00:15:59.899 --> 00:16:02.419 180 degrees, flipping it upside down, and it 00:16:02.419 --> 00:16:05.539 looks completely unchanged, that is C2 symmetry. 00:16:06.019 --> 00:16:09.019 Wow. For DNA to have C2 symmetry, Crick realized 00:16:09.019 --> 00:16:11.139 instantly that the two strands wrapping around 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:13.259 each other must run in opposite directions. It's 00:16:13.259 --> 00:16:15.320 like a two -way street. One strand goes up, the 00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:17.980 other strand goes down. They are parallel but 00:16:17.980 --> 00:16:21.799 anti -parallel. That is brilliant. So... armed 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:24.419 with Franklin's parameters, the unmistakable 00:16:24.419 --> 00:16:27.179 helix shape from the photo, the 34 angst from 00:16:27.179 --> 00:16:30.179 twist, the anti -parallel strands, and her earlier 00:16:30.179 --> 00:16:33.080 crucial realization that the bulky phosphate 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:35.620 backbone had to be on the outside of the molecule. 00:16:36.600 --> 00:16:38.799 Watson and Crick successfully built their double 00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:41.659 helix model in March 1953. And they published 00:16:41.659 --> 00:16:43.799 their triumph in the journal Nature with only 00:16:43.799 --> 00:16:46.340 a highly muted footnote saying they were stimulated 00:16:46.340 --> 00:16:49.120 by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:51.740 experimental results. of Wilkins and Franklin. 00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:54.480 For decades since, the narrative has been heavily 00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:56.779 framed as a great scientific heist. You know, 00:16:56.779 --> 00:16:58.679 the popular idea is that Franklin was a brilliant, 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:01.320 but isolated experimentalist toiling away in 00:17:01.320 --> 00:17:03.360 the dark, entirely unaware that the Cambridge 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:05.460 boys had snuck in and stolen her data to win 00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:07.480 the race. But I want to actively challenge that 00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:10.559 traditional heist narrative based on the incredible 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:12.619 sources we have. Yeah. What she truly robbed 00:17:12.619 --> 00:17:14.660 in the dark. Because our materials bring up some 00:17:14.660 --> 00:17:17.440 astonishing revelations published in 2023 involving 00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:19.299 an unpublished draft for Time magazine written 00:17:19.299 --> 00:17:22.450 by journalist named Joan Bruce back in 19 - That 00:17:22.450 --> 00:17:24.809 unpublished time article completely shifts our 00:17:24.809 --> 00:17:27.269 historical perspective. It really does. Joan 00:17:27.269 --> 00:17:29.450 Bruce had actually consulted directly with Franklin 00:17:29.450 --> 00:17:32.789 for the piece, and Bruce clearly wrote that the 00:17:32.789 --> 00:17:35.349 two teams, Kings and Cambridge, were actually 00:17:35.349 --> 00:17:38.289 linking up. confirming each other's work and 00:17:38.289 --> 00:17:41.349 wrestling over a common problem. Right. Bruce 00:17:41.349 --> 00:17:43.869 noted that Franklin was routinely checking the 00:17:43.869 --> 00:17:46.630 Cambridge theoretical model against her own hard 00:17:46.630 --> 00:17:49.690 x -ray data. It wasn't a blind robbery, it was 00:17:49.690 --> 00:17:52.009 a joint effort where vital information was being 00:17:52.009 --> 00:17:54.849 shared, even if the interpersonal dynamics between 00:17:54.849 --> 00:17:57.230 the players were deeply flawed and competitive. 00:17:57.470 --> 00:17:59.269 And the science historians pointing this out 00:17:59.269 --> 00:18:02.210 emphasize that in 1953, the discovery wasn't 00:18:02.210 --> 00:18:04.490 seen by the scientific community as a definitive 00:18:04.490 --> 00:18:07.829 race, one solely by Watson and Crick, but as 00:18:07.829 --> 00:18:10.390 the outcome of a collaborative, albeit incredibly 00:18:10.390 --> 00:18:12.990 messy effort. Right. But the most heartbreaking 00:18:12.990 --> 00:18:15.470 part to me is what her own private lab notebooks 00:18:15.470 --> 00:18:18.769 reveal. She wasn't just a technician taking pretty 00:18:18.769 --> 00:18:21.430 pictures for the men to analyze. Did she actually 00:18:21.430 --> 00:18:23.609 know it was a double helix before they published? 00:18:23.819 --> 00:18:26.759 She absolutely did. Her later Birkbeck colleague, 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:30.519 Aaron Klug, meticulously analyzed her rough drafts 00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:33.579 from February and March of 1953. Her notebooks 00:18:33.579 --> 00:18:36.180 definitively proved she had independently realized 00:18:36.180 --> 00:18:39.660 that BDNA was a double helical molecule. Wow. 00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:42.839 She noted the two strands. She noted the structural 00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:45.839 similarities between the A and B forms. She even 00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:47.960 realized that the structure could hold an infinite 00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:50.720 variety of nucleotide sequences, which perfectly 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:53.259 explained the biological specificity of DNA. 00:18:53.130 --> 00:18:56.329 She just didn't see the specific complementary 00:18:56.329 --> 00:19:00.150 base pairing mechanism, the rums of the ladder 00:19:00.150 --> 00:19:02.690 connecting the two strands that Watson and Crick 00:19:02.690 --> 00:19:04.710 managed to figure out with their cardboard cutouts. 00:19:05.089 --> 00:19:07.549 It is a profound tragedy of timing. As historians 00:19:07.549 --> 00:19:09.509 have pointed out, she simply ran out of time 00:19:09.509 --> 00:19:11.690 to make those final conceptual leaps because 00:19:11.690 --> 00:19:13.549 Watson and Crick beat her to the punch. And she 00:19:13.549 --> 00:19:16.759 was so strict about her data. Exactly. As a rigorous, 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:19.460 data -driven experimentalist, she simply wasn't 00:19:19.460 --> 00:19:21.640 willing to publish a speculative model until 00:19:21.640 --> 00:19:24.059 her mathematics completely and undeniably proved 00:19:24.059 --> 00:19:26.519 it. Most people assume her story ends there, 00:19:26.579 --> 00:19:28.799 you know, fading into the shadow of the DNA double 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:32.359 helix. But her actual scientific magnum opus 00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:35.960 was just beginning. Yes. In mid -March, 1953, 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:39.420 she leaves King's College. A move she bluntly 00:19:39.420 --> 00:19:42.200 described as going from a palace to the slums 00:19:42.200 --> 00:19:44.400 and sets up her own independent research group 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:46.700 at Birkbeck College. Moving to Birkbeck allowed 00:19:46.700 --> 00:19:50.369 her to pivot away from DNA entirely. She shifted 00:19:50.369 --> 00:19:53.309 her focus to RNA, specifically investigating 00:19:53.309 --> 00:19:56.630 the structure of viruses, and here she achieves 00:19:56.630 --> 00:20:00.049 monumental undisputed success. She takes on the 00:20:00.049 --> 00:20:03.470 tobacco mosaic virus, or TMV. Now, at the time, 00:20:03.769 --> 00:20:05.630 eminent virologists around the world had all 00:20:05.630 --> 00:20:07.549 sorts of conflicting theories about how this 00:20:07.549 --> 00:20:09.490 virus was physically structured. Most thought 00:20:09.490 --> 00:20:12.029 it was a solid clump. But Franklin uses her x 00:20:12.029 --> 00:20:14.150 -ray crystallography magic and proves them all 00:20:14.150 --> 00:20:16.460 wrong. How did she figure out his actual shape? 00:20:16.579 --> 00:20:18.660 Well, by meticulously analyzing the diffraction 00:20:18.660 --> 00:20:21.299 patterns, she mapped the precise location of 00:20:21.299 --> 00:20:23.400 the molecules. She discovered that the virus 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:26.519 wasn't a solid mass. It was a hollow tube composed 00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:30.559 of proteins. A tube? Yes. Furthermore, she proved 00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:33.359 that the genetic material, the RNA, wasn't just 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:35.640 floating around randomly inside the tube. It 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:38.980 was deeply helically wound along the inner surface 00:20:38.980 --> 00:20:41.359 of that hollow structure. That's amazing. She 00:20:41.359 --> 00:20:44.160 coordinated a massive effort bringing in international 00:20:44.039 --> 00:20:47.200 collaborators and managing a brilliant team that 00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:49.819 included future Nobel laureates. And she didn't 00:20:49.819 --> 00:20:52.799 just write dense academic papers about it. For 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.420 the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, she commissioned 00:20:56.420 --> 00:20:59.960 a massive five -foot -high physical model of 00:20:59.960 --> 00:21:02.119 the tobacco mosaic virus so the public could 00:21:02.119 --> 00:21:04.299 see it. I love that. And I absolutely love this 00:21:04.299 --> 00:21:06.500 detail. She built it using table tennis balls 00:21:06.500 --> 00:21:09.160 and plastic bicycle handlebar grips to represent 00:21:09.160 --> 00:21:12.259 the proteins and RNA. So what does this all mean? 00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:14.519 To me, it shows a deeply practical scientist 00:21:14.519 --> 00:21:16.880 who wasn't just dealing in abstract, invisible 00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:19.769 math. She literally brought the microscopic world 00:21:19.769 --> 00:21:22.109 into the human realm where everyday people could 00:21:22.109 --> 00:21:24.410 touch it, see it, and understand it. This raises 00:21:24.410 --> 00:21:26.410 an important question to consider regarding her 00:21:26.410 --> 00:21:28.670 trajectory. How much more could she have achieved 00:21:28.670 --> 00:21:30.529 if she had been given the time? Because right 00:21:30.529 --> 00:21:33.049 as she was pivoting, her group to research the 00:21:33.049 --> 00:21:36.190 live poliovirus securing the largest research 00:21:36.190 --> 00:21:38.930 grant Birkbeck College had ever seen, her health 00:21:38.930 --> 00:21:41.410 rapidly failed. While traveling in the United 00:21:41.410 --> 00:21:45.049 States in 1956, she noticed her stomach bulging. 00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:48.779 and began experiencing severe pain. She was diagnosed 00:21:48.779 --> 00:21:52.140 with advanced ovarian cancer, but she refused 00:21:52.140 --> 00:21:55.019 to stop. She was relentless. Even while undergoing 00:21:55.019 --> 00:21:57.440 brutal cancer treatments, she and her research 00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:00.619 group published seven major papers in 1956 and 00:22:00.619 --> 00:22:04.619 six more in 1957. She kept working, analyzing 00:22:04.619 --> 00:22:06.880 data, and directing her team until she physically 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:10.319 couldn't anymore. She passed away in April 1958 00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:13.809 at the tragically young age of just 37. The foundational 00:22:13.809 --> 00:22:16.009 work she started at Birkbeck didn't die with 00:22:16.009 --> 00:22:18.609 her, though. Her trusted colleague, Aaron Klug, 00:22:18.869 --> 00:22:21.009 who she deliberately made the principal beneficiary 00:22:21.009 --> 00:22:23.890 of her will, continued her exact line of structural 00:22:23.890 --> 00:22:26.369 elucidation of viruses. And he won a Nobel, right? 00:22:26.410 --> 00:22:28.609 He did. He went on to win the Nobel Prize in 00:22:28.609 --> 00:22:31.910 chemistry in 1982, explicitly building upon the 00:22:31.910 --> 00:22:34.650 very work she had initiated and led. Which naturally 00:22:34.650 --> 00:22:36.730 brings us to the complex debate surrounding her 00:22:36.730 --> 00:22:39.390 legacy and what some historians now call the 00:22:39.390 --> 00:22:43.200 Roslund industry. Oh boy. Yes. Ten years after 00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:46.380 her death, James Watson published his incredibly 00:22:46.380 --> 00:22:49.359 famous memoir, The Double Helix, and he paints 00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:51.680 a deeply unflattering, highly subjective portrait 00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:54.859 of her. He constantly refers to her as Rosie, 00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:57.700 a patronizing nickname she absolutely hated. 00:22:58.079 --> 00:23:00.079 She always preferred Rosalind. Yeah, that book 00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:02.319 caused a lot of damage. He portrayed her as incredibly 00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:05.299 difficult, hostile, and essentially framed her 00:23:05.299 --> 00:23:08.099 as a stubborn technician who couldn't even interpret 00:23:08.099 --> 00:23:10.950 her own data. And that specific portrayal sparked 00:23:10.950 --> 00:23:14.970 a massive cultural backlash. In 1975, her personal 00:23:14.970 --> 00:23:17.470 friend Anne Serre published a biography that 00:23:17.470 --> 00:23:20.069 fired back aggressively. Serre framed Franklin 00:23:20.069 --> 00:23:22.170 as a brilliant woman systematically suppressed 00:23:22.170 --> 00:23:24.690 by rampant sexism at King's College. So it's 00:23:24.690 --> 00:23:26.910 the total opposite. Right. Serre's book essentially 00:23:26.910 --> 00:23:29.190 turned Franklin into a wronged feminist icon, 00:23:29.430 --> 00:23:31.369 arguing she was excluded from the male dining 00:23:31.369 --> 00:23:33.990 rooms and constantly patronized by her inferior 00:23:33.990 --> 00:23:36.549 male peers. But the sources show that even that 00:23:36.549 --> 00:23:38.839 counter narrative is hotly contested. We have 00:23:38.839 --> 00:23:40.640 to look at all sides of the historical record 00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:43.220 impartially here. Franklin's own sister, Jennifer 00:23:43.220 --> 00:23:46.440 Glenn, has argued strongly against both Watson's 00:23:46.440 --> 00:23:49.180 demeaning depiction and Sarah's feminist icon 00:23:49.180 --> 00:23:52.160 framing. Her sister states clearly that the stories 00:23:52.160 --> 00:23:54.480 of her father opposing her education were complete 00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:57.640 myths, that Roslyn was absolutely not a feminist 00:23:57.640 --> 00:23:59.559 in the modern sense, and that she would have 00:23:59.559 --> 00:24:01.859 been just as embarrassed by the wronged heroin 00:24:01.859 --> 00:24:04.940 industry as she was by Watson's dismissive book. 00:24:05.289 --> 00:24:08.789 The truth, as is almost always the case in history, 00:24:09.289 --> 00:24:11.930 exists somewhere in the complex, nuanced middle. 00:24:12.130 --> 00:24:15.009 There is no denying the intense interpersonal 00:24:15.009 --> 00:24:17.789 friction she experienced, nor the stark reality 00:24:17.789 --> 00:24:20.029 of navigating the world as a female scientist 00:24:20.029 --> 00:24:22.990 in the 1950s. But continually reducing her to 00:24:22.990 --> 00:24:25.730 a victim of circumstance overshadows her immense, 00:24:25.930 --> 00:24:28.589 undeniable agency, her sharp humor, and her raw 00:24:28.589 --> 00:24:30.730 brilliance as a scientist. So why does her story 00:24:30.730 --> 00:24:33.250 matter to you today? Why do we spend time unpacking 00:24:33.250 --> 00:24:35.430 the life of an x -ray crystallographer from the 00:24:35.430 --> 00:24:38.130 1950s? I think it's a powerful testament to the 00:24:38.130 --> 00:24:40.549 supreme value of rigorous evidence -based work. 00:24:40.789 --> 00:24:43.289 Well said. We live in a world today that is completely 00:24:43.289 --> 00:24:45.069 obsessed with being the first to speak, the first 00:24:45.069 --> 00:24:47.250 to publish, the first to claim the breakthrough 00:24:47.250 --> 00:24:50.470 on social media. Rosalind Franklin reminds us 00:24:50.470 --> 00:24:52.470 that truth doesn't care who gets to the microphone 00:24:52.470 --> 00:24:55.529 first. Truth is found in the data. She left the 00:24:55.529 --> 00:24:57.250 spots on the photographs speak for themselves. 00:24:57.500 --> 00:25:00.460 And her story leaves us with a fascinating historical 00:25:00.460 --> 00:25:03.960 hypothetical to ponder. The Nobel Prize rules 00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:07.160 strictly prohibit posthumous awards. That is 00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:09.240 the official reason why she wasn't included when 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:11.319 Watson, Crick, and Wilkins won the prize for 00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:14.940 DNA in 1962. But imagine if those rigid rules 00:25:14.940 --> 00:25:18.049 didn't exist. Right. If she hadn't died so tragically 00:25:18.049 --> 00:25:20.349 young, and if she had stood on that stage in 00:25:20.349 --> 00:25:23.849 Stockholm in 1962 to accept the Nobel Prize alongside 00:25:23.849 --> 00:25:26.630 them, or perhaps lived to share the 1982 prize 00:25:26.630 --> 00:25:29.269 with Aaron Klug for her virus work, how would 00:25:29.269 --> 00:25:31.470 we remember her today? It changes everything. 00:25:31.730 --> 00:25:34.349 Would we still view her as a tragic hero, a symbol 00:25:34.349 --> 00:25:37.230 of stolen glory and scientific injustice? Or 00:25:37.230 --> 00:25:39.930 would society simply and rightfully recognize 00:25:39.930 --> 00:25:42.190 her as one of the most brilliant foundational 00:25:42.190 --> 00:25:45.009 structural architects of the 20th century? Changing 00:25:45.009 --> 00:25:47.710 that one variable changes the entire length through 00:25:47.710 --> 00:25:49.769 which we view her place in scientific history. 00:25:50.289 --> 00:25:52.730 She ceases to be a footnote and becomes a towering 00:25:52.730 --> 00:25:54.930 pillar of the field. So the next time you see 00:25:54.930 --> 00:25:58.289 that famous blurry gray smudge of photo 51, don't 00:25:58.289 --> 00:26:00.930 just see a picture of DNA. Look past the blur. 00:26:01.069 --> 00:26:03.410 See the bouncer of the coal pores determining 00:26:03.410 --> 00:26:06.049 who gets in and out. See the survivor of the 00:26:06.049 --> 00:26:08.690 Alps ringing math out of chaos. See the builder 00:26:08.690 --> 00:26:11.430 of table tennis ball viruses. See the architect 00:26:11.430 --> 00:26:13.549 who forced life itself to step into the light 00:26:13.549 --> 00:26:14.730 and finally reveal its shape.