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Rosalind Elsie Franklin. July 25, 1920 – April 16, 1958. Discovered much of the Information about the Double-Helix model of DNA. Rosalind’s Early Life and Education. Born on July 25, 1920 in London, England. Second of five children to Ellis Franklin and Muriel Waley.
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Rosalind Elsie Franklin July 25, 1920 – April 16, 1958 Discovered much of the Information about the Double-Helix model of DNA.
Rosalind’s Early Life and Education • Born on July 25, 1920 in London, England. • Second of five children to Ellis Franklin and Muriel Waley. • Attended St. Paul’s Girl’s School, one of the few schools in London that taught physics and chemistry. • By age 15 she had decided she wanted to be a scientist. • Her father wanted her to be a social worker but eventually agreed to pay for her education. • 1928 she enrolled in Newnham College, a women’s college in Cambridge University. • She graduated in 1941 and held a graduate fellowship for a year. • 1942 began work at the British Coal Utilization Research Association studying carbon and graphite microstructures. • 1945 she received her Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Cambridge University.
University Involvement and Careers • 1947-1950 she worked in Paris at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de L’Etat where she learned techniques in X-ray diffraction. • 1951 returned to England to be a research associate at John Randall’s Laboratory at King’s College, Cambridge. • She had trouble with a co-worker there, Maurice Wilkins. • 1951-1953 she became close to solving the structure of DNA, but was beaten to publication by Crick and Wilkins. • Her work had been accidentally shown to them and they rushed what they had discovered to publication, and cited Rosalind’s findings as a supporting journal. • By this time she decided to move to J.D. Bernal’s lab at Birkbeck College until 1958.
Accomplishments • Published several papers and articles. • Royal Society of London and the Royal Institution of Great Britain both requested her material to exhibit. • 1959, also the Brussels World’s Fair requested models of virus molecules (a huge honor). • While she was never actually awarded the Nobel Prize, it is agreed that had she lived longer she would have received it. • In 1956 she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. • She continued to work for the next two years, including working on the polio virus, since she knew she was dying she didn’t think there was much of a risk. • On April 6, 1958, at he young age of 37, Rosalind died.
Sources • McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. Nobel Prize Women in Science. Carol Publishing Group: New York, 1993. 304-332. • “Rosalind Franklin.” www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin • “Rosalind Elsie Franklin.” library.thinkquest.org/20117/