The woman changed the world but was never recognized

The story of a talented but destitute woman, even her great contributions to humanity, is not worthy of recognition: Rosalind Franklin.

Rosalind Franklin - Talented but unlucky scientist

This British female chemist was a pioneer in the discovery of the structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (also known as DNA) , which carries the genetic information encoded for normal cellular activities.

However, the Nobel laureates for the discovery of DNA structure in 1962 were James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, not Rosalind Franklin, because she had unfortunately died of the disease. cancer in 1958.

And, whether or not Rosalind Franklin was robbed by his colleagues right or wrong, it is undeniable that mankind has overlooked many of her accomplishments.

Rosalind Franklin's childhood

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born on July 25, 1920 in London. She is very fortunate to be allowed to attend the St. Paul - one of the few female schools at that time focused on career instead of "housewife". Here, she was extremely gifted in science and language subjects.

Rosalind Franklin - a talented but destitute woman.

At the age of 18, she was admitted to the Newnham Women's Academy, affiliated with the University of Cambridge, majoring in physics - chemistry. What Rosalind Franklin learned here, as well as later, was influenced by the years of World War II.

She graduated in 1941, and spent a full year working at RGW Norrish's lab - a pioneer in the field of photochemistry. Ben took her next job at the British Coal Application Research Association, a non-profit organization that studies the micro structure of different types of coal.

After obtaining his Ph.D., Franklin went to the laboratory of French engineer Jacques Mering in Paris. Here, she learned how to model carbon compounds by using X-ray crystallography, and became an expert in the field. This became a very important stepping stone in discovering the structure of her DNA later on.

"Picture 51", the same structure of DNA

Rosalind Franklin returned to England in 1950, with the goal of collaborating in the lab of John Randall - a biophysicist at King's Academy, London.

Initially, the work Randall intended for her was crystallized and modeled for protein. But Maurice Wilkins, Randall's assistant, suggests that Rosalind should study DNA.

Wilkins' intention was to collaborate with Rosalind Franklin, but the relationship of the two quickly slumped by a misunderstanding. As a result, Raymond Gosling became Wilkins partner. Through capturing X-ray images, they found two forms of DNA, "wet" with a twisted trapezoidal structure, and a "dry" form with a completely different structure. Rosalind Franklin was tasked with researching which structure was really DNA.

At the same time, two biologists Francis Crick and James Watson are trying to build a theoretical model of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory at Camridge University. In January 1953, Wilkins showed the two of them a picture of an X-ray of DNA (the picture is now called "photo 51" ), along with a summary of Rosalind Franklin's unpublished study for the Council. pharmaceutical research.

She was the one who had great merit in finding the structure of DNA.

In April of that year, Watson and Crick published the DNA structure in the journal Nature, but kept it secret that they were shown Rosalind Franklin's documents. It was not until later that Crick admitted that Rosalind Franklin, at that time, had come very close to the goal - just a little more and she had found the structure of DNA.

In fact, in the same issue of Nature, Franklin and Gosling also published what they discovered. But in the end, the whole credit went to Watson, Crick, and Wilkins.

An injustice life

Later, Franklin moved to work at JD Bernal's lab at Birkbeck Academy. Here, she focused on studying the structure of viruses, especially drug mosaic virus (TMV) and polio virus. Radiographs of these viruses were published by Franklin, and recorded by the Royal Institution in 1956.

Unfortunately, that year, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Although she underwent many surgeries and various treatments, she only prolonged her life for a little while longer. Rosalind Franklin died on April 16, 1958, at the age of 37.
In the memoir "The Double Helix" released by James Watson in 1968, Rosalind Franklin is described as "a woman lacking in ability and temper". Many people know Rosalind (including Crick and Wilkins) completely disagree with this.

"If there is a woman who has been treated very unfairly, it can only be Rosalind Franklin. Even her great contributions to discovering the structure of DNA are not recognized." - Ava Helen Pauling, wife of famous scientist Linus Pauling, shared so in an interview with Lee Herzenberg in 1977.

In 1975, Anne Sayre published a biography about Rosalind Franklin, with the aim of reclaiming her justice. Later, another biography was written by Brenda Maddos, telling a more nuanced story about Franklin's life.

And, although Rosalind Franklin's life was extremely short, her great contributions to humanity for DNA, as well as the virus will remain forever.