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Rosalind Franklin
(1920-1958)
The Overlooked Discoverer of DNA
In 1962, three men received the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. Their acceptance speech was pretty standard – descriptions of their hard work, expressions of gratitude to their peers, and thanks to their collaborators. But one person was left off their acknowledgements, her contribution swept under the rug. Had this forgotten figure lived but four more years, she might have been at the podium herself. Or at least put up a good fight in the process.
The men were James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins. The woman was Rosalind Franklin. Their discovery was DNA.
Franklin was a rare breed from the start: a woman, a scientist, and a fighter. Throughout her upbringing, she questioned authority with a probing mind. When taught about God in her Jewish upbringing, she asked, “how do you know He isn’t a She?” In university, she lobbied to get into harder and harder math courses, only to, upon acceptance, proceed to argue with her professors — and win. She wasn’t rude about it (at least not usually), but she did love a good argument. It was how she honed her ideas.
This trait put her in a tough situation when it came to the workplace. To start, she was at a disadvantage as a woman, with her gender only recently being allowed to participate in the field by most institutions, and generally encouraged to be quiet and docile. Her pugnacious nature only made this shaky standing worse. In her first job, she butted heads with her boss, a bull-headed scientist who was at the time succumbing to heavy drinking. Her second and third jobs, where she could bounce ideas off of fellow intellectuals, proved happier. In these, she made major advances in understanding the nature of carbon and becoming proficient in X-ray diffraction 1 Her work on carbon saw her identify the different types of carbon, and how porous each was. This led to her demonstrating the concept of molecular sieves before anyone else, which would prove enormously useful to science and manufacturing down the line. Moreover, her work proved instrumental in the manufacture of graphite and derivative substances, an area of research which is still producing amazing results to this day.. Her fourth job, though, was one so miserable it made history.
Maurice Wilkins (L) and JT “World’s Worst Boss” Randall (R)
“You had to argue strongly with Rosalind.”
This job — at King’s College, London — sounded good to begin with. The scientists there had already made some intriguing advances regarding the structure of DNA, and Franklin’s expertise with X-rays could help them solve it once and for all. There were problems from the get-go, though. The macho atmosphere there was described by one biographer as “barracks-room beer-drinking camaraderie.” Despite approximately a third of the scientists being women, only men were allowed in the main common room, where they had lunch, coffee, and discussed the problems of the day. This cut off her much-needed access to her peers.
The bigger problem, however, was her partner, a mousy fellow named Maurice Wilkins. Although seemingly compatible on paper, the two emphatically did. not. get. along. Whereas Franklin was used to sharpening her ideas by discussing them with colleagues, Wilkins was a shrinking violet who avoided conflict at all costs. In the words of their Ph.D student, Raymond Gosling, “if you believed what you were saying, you had to argue strongly with Rosalind if she thought you were wrong, whereas Maurice would simply shut up. He wouldn’t really go out on a limb and justify himself.”
Their inability to work together proved a tragedy. Their difficulties exacerbated by a scheming manager who actively pitted the two of them against one another, the two eventually ceased collaborating altogether. Although they were mere inches from the finish line, progress slowed to a crawl. And striding right into the gap between these two scientists came Watson and Crick.
Now, upfront, it should be recognized that Watson and Crick are/were both brilliant scientists with many positive traits. None of which will be covered by this writeup.
Watson and Crick were latecomers to the search for DNA’s structure. Building off of others’ works, but without a solid grounding in chemistry, the duo made some early incorrect guesses as to DNA’s structure 2 They supposed it was three helixes, with the protein pairs on the outside, whereas it was two helixes, with the protein pairs on the inside., which were thoroughly shot down by Franklin. Finding her difficult to deal with (Watson, on first meeting her: “momentarily I wondered how she would look if she took off her glasses and did something novel with her hair.”), the two began talking with her erstwhile partner Wilkins. Frustrated and isolated, Wilkins secretly handed over some of Franklin’s work without her permission.
The rest is history. Without her knowledge, Watson and Crick used her work – primarily “Photo 51,” a diffraction result demonstrating the helical nature of DNA – to rush out a paper, and won the Nobel Prize for “the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century.” Wilkins himself, ever self-effacing, took a back seat on the work and allowed them to bask in the glory. Franklin, who’d been maybe three months away from solving the problem herself, remained unaware of their usage of Photo 51 for the rest of her life 3 She’d even been extremely collegial with them, writing letters in a familiar tone and staying with the Cricks when she became very ill. Suffice to say, if she’d known, she would have been somewhat less neighborly., which was tragically short. After some brief work on the tobacco mosaic virus, she died of ovarian cancer, possibly brought on from her work with X-rays. She was 39.
A Complex Legacy
And that would have been that, if it were not for James D. “the D is for Douchebag” Watson 4 Look, he probably isn’t that bad. Undoubtedly he has good qualities. They are not on display in his history with Franklin..
“I wondered how she would look if she took off her glasses and did something novel with her hair.”
There is a silver lining, though. In the aftermath of The Double Helix’s spurious claims, many began to look into what really happened in the search for DNA, and the true story of Rosalind Franklin gradually came to light. In the decades since, many awards, scholarships, and even university departments have been named after her. Watson and (the now late) Crick repeatedly apologized for omitting Franklin’s contribution. Over the years, Watson’s eccentricities only became more and more apparent, with him voicing support for genetic engineering to wipe out stupid and ugly people, and making remarks suggesting Africans are genetically inferior to other ethnicities. These statements have led to such a degree of ostracism for Watson that in 2014, he became the first ever living Nobel Prize recipient to auction off their medal.
All of which is to say, the wheels of karma grind slow but strong. Rosalind Franklin may have been a woman too strident to be honored in her time, but the future has not forgotten her.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Her work on carbon saw her identify the different types of carbon, and how porous each was. This led to her demonstrating the concept of molecular sieves before anyone else, which would prove enormously useful to science and manufacturing down the line. Moreover, her work proved instrumental in the manufacture of graphite and derivative substances, an area of research which is still producing amazing results to this day. |
| ↑2 | They supposed it was three helixes, with the protein pairs on the outside, whereas it was two helixes, with the protein pairs on the inside. |
| ↑3 | She’d even been extremely collegial with them, writing letters in a familiar tone and staying with the Cricks when she became very ill. Suffice to say, if she’d known, she would have been somewhat less neighborly. |
| ↑4 | Look, he probably isn’t that bad. Undoubtedly he has good qualities. They are not on display in his history with Franklin. |
| ↑5 | This nickname was not overly diminutive on its face — but it was a familiarity which Franklin disliked, going only by Ros with her very close friends and family members. Watson did not fall into this group. |
Art Notes
- The idea here was to have her working in the dark, while Watson and Crick were in the light. This kind of plays against her infamous Photo 51 and the idea of photographic darkrooms.
- The shadows of Watson and Crick are boxing her in on either side. You can even see the shadow of Watson’s hand cast over Photo 51 (on the foreground table), as if he’s taking it.
- Whispering in Wilkins’ ear is their terrible manager, JT Randall. The dude sowed discord between the two of them, and made them really dislike each other practically from the beginning. Not that they ever would have been best friends, but they never had a chance with Randall in the picture. He also apparently tried to get Franklin so miserable she’d quit, so Randall could take some of the credit for the discovery of DNA. Who wants to bet he had a “World’s #1 Boss” mug?
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There is a cool TEDx talk about teaching Dr.Franklin’s story (and science in general here) https://youtu.be/av3_CLBU7sI
Rad! Thank you!
Damn, I dressed up as Rosalind Franklin for last year’s Halloween costume (my Chem professor offered extra credit for a chemistry-related costume!), but I got it wrong cuz I interpreted “the picture” as related to photography. Ah, well. Still, it’s sweet to see a shoutout to Franklin!
Will there be a poster soon? I work in a DNA lab and we have a big, empty wall we need to fill!!
I love your website/blog!
One thing though, didn’t Linus Pauling assert that DNA was in the structure of a triple helix and Watson actually realized that Pauling was wrong? I’m a little shaky on genetics (though we just did that unit in my biology class), but I found a source agreeing with me:
https://www.dnalc.org/view/15512-Linus-Pauling-s-triple-DNA-helix-model-3D-animation-with-basic-narration.html
But maybe your research said otherwise and perhaps that’s correct. :) Again, great post and great website! I look forward to new posts every Wednesday!
Pauling did put forward a triple helix. At least three groups were pursuing that possibility including Watson and Crick early on.
You might be right, actually – let me consult my books when I get back home. Now that you mention it, I believe they did think it was three at one point and then shifted to two, which my writeup doesn’t reflect.
When she was dying of cancer, Rosalinn Franklin chose to spend the last months of her life as a houseguest of James Watson and his wife.
In high school genetics we watched the movie “The Race for the Double Helix.” It focused on Watson and Crick and made sure to feature Franklin as a major character. My classmates were more impressed by Franklin than the other two.
There’s one now! http://www.redbubble.com/people/jasonporath/works/19223418-rosalind-franklin-rejected-princesses
Died at *37. The Nobel was awarded in ’62, she died in ’58, the Nobel Committee does not give posthumous awards. She was studying the structure of viruses in general, the tobacco mosaic virus was just one of the exemplars or test subjects she was working with (I think she was also using polio, smallpox or measles or something else with a lot of notoriety behind its name. One of the people working with her on that also later won a Nobel using work which likely would have been sufficient to see her awarded as a co-recipient, had she been alive. That whole lunch room gender segregation thing and the part about 1/3 of her peers being women, maybe 1/3 of the total staff for the building were women but there was only 1 other female scientist working in the lab, which actually makes the lack of access to peers during that time even more drastic because most of the other women around would have been secretaries, clerks or some type of administrative workers.
You should do one on Lise Meitner as well yet another Jewish woman who should have gotten a Nobel Prize but didn’t because her male partner Otto Han didn’t mention her at all despite the fact she was the one who first discovered nuclear fission!
Lise Meitner did indeed deserve that Nobel Prize, and Otto Han along with the Nobel Committee dealt her a raw deal.
I do feel like I should mention a few facts that are relevant. These even don’t change basic point. Actually they strengthen the case for doing a Rejected Princess piece on Lise Meitner.
First, Lise Meitner converted to Christianity long before these events. So (putting aside Nazi standards of Jewishness, despite their relevance to the story) she was not Jewish, and thus not a Jewish Princess. Perhaps “A Rejected Princess of Jewish extraction”. This doesn’t effect the science, but it might effect a cartoon.
And second, it isn’t really true that Rosalind Franklin was denied a Nobel Prize, as she was dead at the time of its award to Watson and Crick. It is hard to know if the prize committee would have included her in the award. It is true that Watson and Crick did not mention her name very prominently. On the other hand, at the time of her death she apparently held no ill will towards Watson, since she crashed at his house for some time while dying of cancer. And unlike the case with Meitner, Franklin was not a collaborator with Watson and Crick: they saw her DNA x-ray diffraction data in a seminar she gave, and figured out themselves how to interpret it. It might have been *nice* of them to include her as a co-author or to collaborate with her on interpreting the data. But the data had been made publicly available, so they weren’t under any obligation to do so.
So: hear hear for Lise Meitner!
She was still Jewish Judaism has nothing to do with what one believes or does even Orthodox Jews agree a Jew can be a religion hating atheist or an agnostic like Albert Einstein so long they have a Jewish mother they are Jewish just not very good ones.
Respectfully, there is a difference between ethnicity and religion, which is muddied by the word “Jewish” being used for both.
I generally would not recommend instructing a non-identifying Jew that they are still Jewish. It’s likely to bring about frustration on both sides. :)
Meitner is on the list, for sure.
As to your other points – when I get a sec, I’ll reword the entry to remove the ambiguousness that seems to be tripping up some very well-meaning (and often perhaps overly passionate) readers — I do not mean to say she should have been given the Nobel posthumously, merely that:
a) she deserved some credit
b) had she lived, she would have deserved to get it
c) Watson (and, to a far lesser extent, Crick and Wilkins) disgracefully trod over her name after her death.
Yes, she had befriended the Watsons and stayed with them in her declining years. She was also unaware that they had based their work off of hers. Watson did attend a lecture of hers where she described some of her up-and-coming findings, but I do not believe she showed Photo 51 at that time. Instead, the photo was given to him in relative secret by Wilkins, due in large part to Wilkins’ frustration with his working relationship. Viewing Photo 51 was a key puzzle piece to their discovery. Your assessment of their thanking her being an unnecessary nicety is a matter of personal opinion. Personally, I take it from an inverse point view — that is, not doing so (and then dragging her name through the mud) was a dick move.
She’s on the list!
I know I am Jewish and agnostic myself so I feel the need to explain it is more complicated than that. Judaism has been described as a religion, a race, a culture, and a nation all of which are partly true.There is a connection between both ethnicity and faith because Halacha Jewish Religious Law says a child born to a Jewish mother or an adult who has converted to Judaism is considered a Jew. Even Einstein himself that had said that, “a Jew who sheds his faith along the way, or who even picks up a different one, is still a Jew”. I find it rude to call Meitzer a “Jewish Princess of extraction” when she is considered ethnically Jewish though she was not Jewish religiously. Her religious conversion does not mean she did so in an attempt to extract or forcefully remove her ‘Jewishness’ like she hated being Jewish. The only one who knows that for sure is Meitzer herself! It is also offensive to the Jewish people we are a family she is Jewish under Halacha and so she is considered a part of that family by many if not all Jews though the more religious may accuse her of self-loathing. Maybe she did hate being a Jew who knows she had always been a non-practicing Jew from what I researched I’m doing a report on her. If she was I wouldn’t blame her the time period not to mention location she was living in did not exactly make being a Jew very ‘fun’. If you want to know more about Judaism Judaism 101 is a pretty good site as well as the Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewfaq.org/whoisjew.htm https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/whojew1.html
:) I’m also an agnostic Jew with many generations of rabbis on my dad’s side. But thank you for your passion and eloquence in defending your position. :)
Cool!
She also invite her coworker to the funeral of his hypothesis
expert Troll level 1000
we learned about her in my bio class she is awesome