Francis Harry Compton Crick was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical structure of the DNA molecule.
James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper in Nature proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".
Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, Franklin's contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely unrecognised during her life, for which Franklin has been variously referred to as the "wronged heroine", the "dark lady of DNA", the "forgotten heroine", a "feminist icon", and the "Sylvia Plath of molecular biology".
Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was a New Zealand-born British biophysicist and Nobel laureate whose research spanned multiple areas of physics and biophysics, contributing to the scientific understanding of phosphorescence, isotope separation, optical microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. He is known for his work at King's College London on the structure of DNA.
The year 1953 involved numerous significant events in science and technology, including the first description of the DNA double helix, the discovery of neutrinos, and the release of the first polio vaccine.
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA is an autobiographical account of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA written by James D. Watson and published in 1968. It has earned both critical and public praise, along with continuing controversy about credit for the Nobel award and attitudes towards female scientists at the time of the discovery.
Raymond George Gosling was a British scientist. While a PhD student at King's College, London he worked under the supervision of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. The crystallographic experiments of Franklin and Gosling, together with others by Wilkins, produced data that helped James Watson and Francis Crick to infer the structure of DNA.
"Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" was the first article published to describe the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, using X-ray diffraction and the mathematics of a helix transform. It was published by Francis Crick and James D. Watson in the scientific journal Nature on pages 737–738 of its 171st volume.
Herbert Rees Wilson FRSE was a physicist, who was one of the team who worked on the structure of DNA at King's College London, under the direction of Sir John Randall.
Alexander Rawson Stokes was a British physicist at Royal Holloway College, London and later at King's College London. He was most recognised as a co-author of the second of the three papers published sequentially in Nature on 25 April 1953 describing the correct molecular structure of DNA. The first was authored by Francis Crick and James Watson, and the third by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling.
Rudolf Signer contributed to the discovery of the DNA double helix. He was a Professor for organic chemistry at the University of Bern from 1935 until 1972.
William Thomas Astbury FRS was an English physicist and molecular biologist who made pioneering X-ray diffraction studies of biological molecules. His work on keratin provided the foundation for Linus Pauling's discovery of the alpha helix. He also studied the structure for DNA in 1937 and made the first step in the elucidation of its structure.
The history of molecular biology begins in the 1930s with the convergence of various, previously distinct biological and physical disciplines: biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, virology and physics. With the hope of understanding life at its most fundamental level, numerous physicists and chemists also took an interest in what would become molecular biology.
Eukaryotic chromosome structure refers to the levels of packaging from raw DNA molecules to the chromosomal structures seen during metaphase in mitosis or meiosis. Chromosomes contain long strands of DNA containing genetic information. Compared to prokaryotic chromosomes, eukaryotic chromosomes are much larger in size and are linear chromosomes. Eukaryotic chromosomes are also stored in the cell nucleus, while chromosomes of prokaryotic cells are not stored in a nucleus. Eukaryotic chromosomes require a higher level of packaging to condense the DNA molecules into the cell nucleus because of the larger amount of DNA. This level of packaging includes the wrapping of DNA around proteins called histones in order to form condensed nucleosomes.
Photo 51 is an X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber taken by Raymond Gosling, a postgraduate student working under the supervision of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College London, while working in Sir John Randall's group. The image was tagged "photo 51" because it was the 51st diffraction photograph that Franklin had taken. It was critical evidence in identifying the structure of DNA.
What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery is a book published in 1988 and written by Francis Crick, the English co-discoverer in 1953 of the structure of DNA. In the book, Crick gives important insights into his work on the DNA structure, along with the central dogma of molecular biology and the genetic code, and his later work on neuroscience.
Anne Sayre was an American writer well known for her biography of Rosalind Franklin, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA.
Photograph 51 is a play by Anna Ziegler. Photograph 51 opened in the West End of London in September 2015. The play focuses on the often-overlooked role of X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA while working at King's College London. This play won the third STAGE International Script Competition in 2008. The title comes from Photo 51, the nickname given to an X-ray diffraction image taken by Raymond Gosling in May, 1952, under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin. The one-act play runs for 95 minutes with no intermission.
Rosalind Franklin and DNA is a biography of an English chemist Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) written by her American friend Anne Sayre in 1975. Franklin was a physical chemist who made pivotal research in the discovery of the structure of DNA, known as "the most important discovery" in biology. DNA itself had become "life's most famous molecule". While working at the King's College London in 1951, she discovered two types of DNA called A-DNA and B-DNA. Her X-ray images of DNA indicated helical structure. Her X-ray image of B-DNA taken in 1952 became the best evidence for the structure of DNA. For the discovery of the correct chemical structure of DNA, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962 was shared by her colleagues and close researchers James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins; she had died four years earlier in 1958 making her ineligible for the award.
The Rosalind Franklin Institute is a physical sciences research centre devoted to developing new technologies for medical research and the life sciences. They are supported by the Government of the United Kingdom located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Oxfordshire, England. It is named after an English chemist Rosalind Franklin, whose discoveries provided the key data for the correct explanation of the helical structure of DNA in 1953. Launched on 6 June 2018, it was officially opened on 29 September 2021.
