Did Rosalind Franklin actually discover DNA?
According to Jim Watson, who spoke at UCSF yesterday, Rosalind Franklin did not “deserve” to get credit for the discovery of the structure of DNA because although she completed the X-ray crystallography work that Watson and Crick based their theory on, she did not come up with the final structural theory herself.
Franklin's specialty, X-ray crystallography, in a drive to understand DNA's structure. Little did they know that the structure itself would provide the key to understanding how genetic information is transferred from one generation to another.
Franklin did not share this research herself, but a letter to Crick from one of her colleagues suggests she was aware that the information was shown to the other two scientists, the authors write. In this way, the data was not outright stolen from her, they argue.
In 1962 Watson (b. 1928), Crick (1916–2004), and Wilkins (1916–2004) jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their 1953 determination of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Wilkins's colleague Franklin (1920–1958), who died from cancer at the age of 37, was not so honored.
Franklin wasn't the victim of data theft at the hands of James Watson and Francis Crick, say biographers of the famous duo. Instead, she collaborated and shared data with Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins. Seventy years ago, a trio of scientific papers announcing the discovery of DNA's double helix was published.
Franklin was unaware that Wilkins, Watson, and Crick had used her X-ray photograph and thus they did not receive her permission to use her data. Not only did they use her photograph, but they published their findings without any mention of Franklin.
Franklin chose to work on A-DNA, while B-DNA was given to Maurice Wilkins. By the early 1953, Franklin was aware that both A and B forms of DNA were composed of two helical chains.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 was awarded to James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery of the molecular structure of DNA, which helped solve one of the most important of all biological riddles.
Created by Rosalind Franklin using a technique called X-ray crystallography, it revealed the helical shape of the DNA molecule. Watson and Crick realized that DNA was made up of two chains of nucleotide pairs that encode the genetic information for all living things.
The photo was taken in May 1952 by Rosalind Franklin and her PhD student Raymond Gosling in the basem*nt underneath the chemistry laboratories at the MRC Biophysics Unit. Franklin, a biophysicist, had been recruited to the unit to work on the structure of DNA.
How old was Rosalind Franklin when she died?
Working under John Desmond Bernal, Franklin led pioneering work at Birkbeck on the molecular structures of viruses. On the day before she was to unveil the structure of tobacco mosaic virus at an international fair in Brussels, Franklin died of ovarian cancer at the age of 37 in 1958.
DNA found in Greenland has broken the record for the oldest yet discovered. The fragments of animal and plant DNA are around 800,000 years older than the mammoth DNA that previously held the record, with older sequences perhaps still to be found.
DNA has deoxyribose sugar. It is called so due to the absence of one oxygen in the second carbon (as seen in the image). RNA is made of ribose sugar.
How Was DNA Discovered? DNA was discovered in 1869 by Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher, who was originally trying to study the composition of lymphoid cells (white blood cells). Instead, he isolated a new molecule he called nuclein (DNA with associated proteins) from a cell nucleus.
We know that DNA exists in this double helix because it's the only shape that can explain the X-ray diffraction patterns it forms. We know that not just from Rosalind Franklin's image, but from many other images taken over the years by plenty of other scientists.
Answer and Explanation:
During her lifetime, Rosalind Franklin did not receive any awards for her work on the structure of DNA. In fact, the only awards she received were in the form of research fellowships, grants, honors for academic achievement.
And a still smaller number know that Rosalind Franklin, another English scientist, was not given this great honour although her work was an important contribution to Watson, Crick and Wilkins' discovery.
Posthumous portrayals often make her out to be some kind of feminist icon in the same vein of Susan B. Anthony or Gloria Steinem. But she didn't spend her time thinking about how to combat sexism at an institutional level. That's not to say she didn't encounter challenges because she was a woman.
Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life ... I do not accept your definition of faith i.e. belief in life after death ... Your faith rests on the future of yourself and others as individuals, mine in the future and fate of our successors.
Why is Photo 51 so important?
Photo 51 is one of the world's most important photographs, demonstrating the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid: the molecule containing the genetic instructions for the development of all living organisms.
Franklin's biographer, Brenda Maddox, called her “the Dark Lady of DNA”, based on a disparaging reference to Franklin by one of her coworkers, and also because although her work on DNA was crucial to the discovery of its structure, her contribution to that discovery is little known.
As a child, Rosalind Franklin was intelligent, determined, and energetic. Growing up with several brothers close to her age, she learned competitive sports and engaged in interests more typically associated with boys. At St. Paul's Girls School, she displayed a natural talent for science and languages.
Much of the controversy comes from a central idea: that James Watson and Francis Crick — the first to figure out DNA's shape — stole data from another scientist named Rosalind Franklin.
The race to solve the structure of DNA was therefore won by Watson and Crick. In 1962, Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared a Nobel Prize for their momentous discovery.
