According to lore, the instrumental piece of information that led to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA was recognised by James Watson, when he was shown an X-ray image of DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin. This famous image, Photograph 51, gradually became a symbol of Rosalind’s achievement and mistreatment. She also earned the moniker of the ‘Dark Lady of DNA’ because of her relatively private and reserved personality, as well as her limited recognition for the discovery of the life-creating structure.
Rosalind was born on July 25, 1920, in London. She pursued a degree in physical chemistry at Newnham College, Cambridge. It was during her tenure at King’s College, London, that she contributed to the discovery of the double helix. Unlike earlier researchers, she was able to differentiate between the A and B forms of DNA. In addition to finding that the DNA unit cell was enormous, she determined the C2 symmetry exhibited by the unit cell. However, she was unfamiliar with the significance of her findings.
She was also able to grasp a fundamental insight of how in principle, DNA structure could specify proteins. Unfortunately, Rosalind was unsuccessful in realising the implications of her data, partly because she was working on her own, and was excluded from the informal exchanges in which her contemporaries Watson and Crick were immersed. After seeing Photograph 51, Watson and Francis Crick were handed an informal report containing Rosalind’s analyses, without permission, which were also significant for confirming the structure that the two researchers eventually obtained. In 1953, Crick and Watson proposed their double helix model of DNA and tried to set the records straight by acknowledging the value of Rosalind’s data. However, it was belated and overlooked, as she was not awarded the Nobel Prize alongside Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins. Rosalind’s life was cut short in 1958 due to ovarian cancer.