The Race to Uncover DNA's Structure
The discovery of DNA's structure stands as one of the twentieth century's most significant scientific achievements. While Francis Crick and James Watson are the names most commonly linked to this breakthrough, the full story involves several researchers whose work proved essential to understanding the molecule that carries our genetic information.
The route from laboratory work to the famous double helix model involved rivalry between research groups, contested credit for key findings, and contributions from scientists in Britain and the United States working in physics, chemistry and biology.
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In the early 1950s, Watson, an American biologist, and Crick, a British physicist, were working together at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Their aim was to determine the physical structure of DNA, though they were not the only scientists pursuing this goal.
Rosalind Franklin, a chemist and X-ray crystallographer, was conducting research at King's College London. Her expertise lay in capturing detailed images of molecular structures using X-ray diffraction techniques. Maurice Wilkins, a New Zealand-born physicist, was also based at King's College and served as a director in the biophysics unit there.
Meanwhile, Linus Pauling, an American chemist, had already made a name for himself by identifying the alpha helix structure of proteins in 1951. His methods influenced how other researchers approached the problem of DNA's shape, though his own proposed structure for DNA, a triple helix, turned out to be incorrect.
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X-Ray Images and the Helical Clue
In 1951, Wilkins produced early X-ray photographs of DNA fibres. These images suggested that DNA might have a helical form, similar in some ways to the protein structures Pauling had described.
When Watson arrived in England and saw these photographs, he became increasingly convinced that the helical approach was worth pursuing. However, it was an image produced by Franklin that proved most significant.
Franklin's Photo 51, taken in 1952, provided clearer evidence of DNA's helical structure. Watson and Crick gained access to this image, along with Franklin's unpublished data, without her direct knowledge or proper acknowledgment. This remains a point of ethical debate among historians of science. The information helped them refine their model considerably.
By early 1953, Watson and Crick had built their famous double helix model. They proposed that DNA consisted of two strands wound around each other, with paired bases connecting the strands like rungs on a twisted ladder.
Recognition and Legacy
Watson, Crick and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their work on DNA's structure. Franklin had died of ovarian cancer in 1958 at the age of 37. Because Nobel Prizes are only awarded to living recipients, she could not be considered.
Franklin's contribution has received greater attention in recent decades, though her recognition remains a subject of active discussion among historians of science. Many now acknowledge that her X-ray crystallography work was fundamental to the discovery, even though she did not share in the Nobel Prize.
The discovery of DNA's structure opened the door to modern genetics. It explained how genetic information could be stored and copied, which in turn led to developments in medicine, forensics and ancestry testing.
Today, DNA testing is available to ordinary people through various services. Understanding where this science began can give some useful context when considering genetic testing options.
For those interested in the science of genetics and its applications, organisations such as the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which has sequenced genomes for thousands of species, and the Medical Research Council, which funded the original Cambridge laboratory where Watson and Crick worked, continue to build on this foundational research in the UK.
i am sooooooooo naughty
See Nature 2013:496; 270..........
Even the greatest scientific discoveries come with an element of the mundane. A humble paperclip was biophysicist Raymond Gosling’s choice. Late one night in May 1952, in a chemistry lab in London, the PhD student wrapped DNA around a paperclip to keep the molecule’s fibres stretched taut in front of an X-ray source so that he could analyse their structure. The result was the celebrated ‘photograph 51’ — the image that told James Watson that DNA strands curl around each other like a twisted ladder, and that the specific pairings in the rungs are key to the mechanism of inheritance.
Watson and Crick’s paper features only a glancing concession to being “stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of [Wilkins and Franklin’s] unpublished experimental results and ideas”. There is no mention of Gosling by name. Gosling left research soon after, with no bitterness; in his words, he “was no good at it”
Discoveries take ego, genius, conflict, inspiration and fierce ambition. But they also need the hard graft of PhD students who beaver away late into the night and improvise with what they find in the stationery cupboard. They do not always receive the recognition that they deserve. Raymond Gosling is a good place to start to reverse that trend
so lets begin the games
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