NIMBioS Facilities: Franklin Classroom (Room 105)
Rosalind Franklin was born on July 25, 1920, in London, England. Franklin was educated at Newnham College, and received her doctorate in physics from Cambridge University in 1945. Franklin was responsible for much of the work leading to the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Franklin used x-ray diffraction to study DNA in a research lab in London, where she briefly crossed paths with Maurice Wilkins, one of three scientists officially attributed with the discovery of DNA's structure. Franklin's crystallographic portraits of DNA caught Wilkin's eye, and he showed them to James Watson, who, supposedly, arrived at the double helix solution using those photographs. Watson immediately published the results in conjunction with his other colleague Francis Crick. Watson, Crick and Wilkins all received the Nobel Prize in 1962 for this work, while Franklin never received official credit for her part in it. Franklin continued doing research, including work on vaccines for polio and other viruses. She died from ovarian cancer on April 16, 1958.
NIMBioS
1122 Volunteer Blvd., Suite 106
University of Tennessee
Knoxville,
TN 37996-3410
PH: (865) 974-9334
FAX: (865) 974-9461
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