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Watson, Crick and Franklin

DNA DL90 by artist Abigail Fallis was commissioned on the 50th anniversary of James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of DNA’s double helix structure, which was based on Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images of DNA.

Francis Harry Compton Crick (1916-2004) and James Dewey Watson (b.1928) worked together at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University from 1951. Their research focused on the structure of DNA, the molecule containing hereditary information for cells.

In 1953 Watson and Crick published their findings that the molecular structure of DNA was a double helix. Their work helped to explain how DNA replicates and how hereditary information is coded on it. This led to major advances in the field of molecular biology and in 1962 they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine along with Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004).

London-born Rosalind Franklin studied at Cambridge University and later joined Kings College, London to research DNA. In May 1952 she took a picture capturing the X-ray diffraction pattern of DNA. This image helped provide Watson and Crick with the insight to comprehend the structure of DNA. Franklin died in 1958, and despite her key work, could not share the Nobel Prize because it cannot be awarded posthumously.

 

Image credits:
1. James Dewey Watson; Francis Harry Compton Crick by Antony Barrington Brown, 1953. This image has been reproduced with kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.
2. Rosalind Franklin by Elliott & Fry, 1946 © National Portrait Gallery, London

 

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