Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins Chase Greenberg and

Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins Chase Greenberg and Taewon Kim

Rosalind Franklin

Background • Born July 25, 1920 in London • Attended Newham College, Cambridge • She was taught X-ray Crystallography and X-ray diffraction from Jacques Mering • She worked at Kings College in London

Maurice Wilkins

Background • Born in Pongaroa, New Zealand in 1916 • 1938: Graduated St. John’s College in Cambridge with a degree in Physics • Started work with John Randall at University of St. Andrews in Scotland • Both moved to Kings College where Randall soon hired Franklin

Experiment • Prepared crystallographs from uniformly oriented DNA fibers. The images suggested a spiral model • X-ray crystallography: When a purified substance can be made to form crystals; the pattern of diffraction passed though the crystallized substance shows position of atoms • Shows 3 -D pattern • Franklin created Photo 51 using DNA diffraction. This method does not require crystallization. DNA doesn’t like to form a crystal, rather organized fibers

DNA Crystallography

Photo 51

Contributions • It was Rosalind Franklin’s “Photo 51” that allowed Watson and Crick realize DNA has a double helix structure • https: //www. dnalc. org/view/15260 -rosalind-franklin-points-out-watson-and -crick-s-mistakes-raymond-gosling. html • Photo 51 was shown to Watson and Crick by her colleague Maurice Wilkins without her knowledge • In 1962, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the shape of DNA • Franklin was not recognized for her work until after her death

Sources • https: //www. dnalc. org/view/15014 -Franklin-s-X-ray-diffraction-explanationof-x-ray-pattern-. html • https: //askabiologist. asu. edu/Rosalind_Franklin-DNA • http: //www. dnaftb. org/19/bio-4. html • http: //www. biography. com/people/maurice-wilkins-21335889#manhattanproject