Meet Smart Scientist Rosalind Franklin whose work helped discover the structure of DNA

 

Why not use this Smart Scientist Biog to inform your students about scientist Rosalind Franklin and how her pioneering work using x-ray crystallography helped lead to the discovery of the structure of DNA. This resource explores in more depth one of the scientists who feature on the free science resource on DNA.

 

Rosalind Franklin and her pioneering work on DNA

 

Rosalind Franklin was born in London in 1920 and decided aged 15 that she wanted to be a scientist. However, her father was against the idea because at that time it was not seen as a job suitable for a woman. After much perseverance and hard work, she attended Cambridge University and became a doctor of science in 1945. She specialised in using a new technique called X-ray crystallography.

In 1951 she started to work with Maurice Wilkins on a project to work out the structure of DNA. At that time scientists knew that it existed as strands in the nucleus of cells and that it controlled characteristics but they did not understand how it worked. They thought that figuring out structure of DNA; how the atoms in it were arranged, was the key to solving this puzzle. However, DNA is too small to be seen, even with a microscope, so more complex techniques were needed to find out its structure.

Franklin used X-ray crystallography to study the structure of DNA and came very close to working out its structure. Maurice showed another scientist called James Watson her images without asking her. Watson was able to use them to solve the puzzle and publish a paper with his colleague Francis Crick on how they discovered the structure of DNA. In 1962 Watson, Crick and Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize.

A debate over the amount of credit due to Franklin still continues. What is agreed, is that she was an amazing scientist whose work was very important in deducing the structure of DNA; an amazing discovery which heralded the start of a new age of genetic science. Unfortunately, Franklin died in 1956, too early to realise that she got the recognition she deserved.

 

Did you know?

 

Photo 51 is the nickname given to the X-ray image of DNA shown to James Watson.

John Bernal a leading physicist, wrote ‘her photographs are among the most beautiful x-ray photographs of any substance ever taken.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

X-ray crystallography can be used to work out the structure of very small molecules. The technique is very complicated but it is explained well in this video

After completing her work on DNA Franklin went on to carry out important work on determining the structure of viruses. For a time she kept a sample of crystallised polio virus in a thermos in her family’s refrigerator!

 

Additional Resources

If you’re exploring DNA, your students will also enjoy finding out about mutations and what happens when DNA goes wrong.