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Rosalind Franklin was born on 25th July 1920 in 50 Chepstow villas near Notting Hill in London. She was a Chemist and an X-ray crystallographer whose work mainly focused on understanding the Molecular Structures of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and the RNA (ribonucleic acid) along with the study of viruses, coal, and graphite. She is often termed the “dark lady of DNA” and also the “wronged heroine”. She is a prominent feminist icon for her study of molecular biology. The Rosalind Franklin DNA study had become quite a revelation during those times. Now let’s learn about her early life struggles.
Early Life
Rosalind Franklin was excellent in her studies. She joined her brother Roland at Norland Place School. She also had a peak interest in sports such as Cricket and Hockey. At the age of nine, Rosalind joined a boarding school called Lindores school for young ladies in Sussex. She went to St Paul’s Girl’s School in Hammersmith, situated in west London, at the age of eleven. She learned a host of different languages there, such as German and French. Rosalind was exceptionally brilliant in all subjects except music. Her music teacher would inquire that she might be suffering from a hearing disability. Rosalind won a scholarship from her university for her astounding grades. Now let’s learn about a few Rosalind Franklin facts.
Rosalind Franklin Facts
A vital part of Rosalind Franklin biography are facts related to her life. A few facts about Rosalind Franklin are as follows:
- Before DNA structure theory, Rosalind studied the holes in coal. During the second world war, she started studying the nuances of coal for fuel and wartime machinery. She did a PhD thesis which was titled “The Physical Chemistry of Solid organic colloids with special reference towards coal”
- Rosalind captured photograph 51. There was a paper by Franklin, published in “Nature” by Watson and Crick, which won the 1962 Nobel Prize. The paper proposed the model of the Rosalind Franklin DNA structure. Photograph 51 showed that the DNA is helical. Rosalind’s ideas were generally different and contradictory to the model proposed by Watson and Crick in the communicated published papers
- Rosalind loved to travel. She used to travel frequently to her favourite country France and go trekking through the French Alps. She once wrote to her mother that she was quite sure she could roam around France forever as she loved the country and its delectable food. Furthermore, she also travelled to the US for work
- Rosalind continued her discoveries on the Tobacco Virus after her study on DNA. In 1953, Rosalind moved to Birkbeck College. There, she started working on the structure of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) through the help of X-ray crystallography. Her team put up a model of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus; a barrel-shaped virus made up of proteins
- Rosalind worked till her last breath and published seven scientific papers and even more while undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment. She worked even in the last months of her life and devoted her time to research right to the end.
Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Study
Rosalind joined scientists of the medical research unit at King’s college while john Randall recruited her to work on Rosalind Franklin DNA structure. DNA was originally discovered in 1898 by Johann Miescher, which was a key to genetics. It was only in the middle of the 20th century when scientific methods had come to design the actual structure of the molecule to be discovered.
Rosalind took photographs of the B version of the molecule using X-ray crystallography. Maurice H. F Wilkins, a co-worker of Rosalind, showed the pictures of Rosalind Franklin DNA to James Watson. Watson and Francis Crick were independently working on the DNA structure. Watson realized these photographs could be termed as scientific evidence they required to prove that the DNA molecule was a double-stranded helix.
Watson, on the discovery of DNA structure, dismissed Rosalind’s role in the discovery. Rosalind later went to Birbeck college to study the Tobacco Mosaic Virus and Rosalind’s helix structure of the virus RNA. She continued working at Birbeck College for John Desmond Bernal with Aaron Klug, whose work, including Rosalind’s theories won them the 1982 Nobel Prize. This was a short yet detailed view of Rosalind Franklin biography.
Conclusion
In this blog, we learned about Rosalind Franklin, her early life, and her biography, including Rosalind Franklin facts and her study on the DNA structure. To clarify all concepts here is a dedicated FAQ section to make you well-versed about Rosalind Franklin.
