Extra! Extra!  More on Photograph 51

MEET THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE CHARACTERS

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British biophysicist who was trained as a chemist and specialized in X-ray crystallography[1] She made important contributions to the scientific understanding of the molecular structures of coal and graphite and, using X-ray diffraction, DNA, RNA and viruses.   CONTINUE READING

Franklin discovered that DNA comes in two forms, which she labeled "A" and "B."  An image, named "Photograph 51", was the key in determining this.  

Crick was an important theoretical molecular biologist and played a crucial role in research related to revealing the genetic code. He is widely known for use of the term “central dogma” to summarize an idea that genetic information flow in cells is essentially one-way, from DNA to RNA to protein.  CONTINUE READING

James Watson

James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA with Francis Crick, in 1953. Watson, Francis 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".  CONTINUE READING

Maurice Wilkins

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins CBE FRS (15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004) was a New Zealand-born English physicist and molecular biologist, and Nobel Laureate whose research contributed to the scientific understanding of phosphorescence, isotope separation, optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction, and to the development of radar. He is best known for his work at King's College London on the structure of DNA.  CONTINUE READING

Donald Caspar

Donald Caspar (born January 8, 1927) is an American academic who has made significant scientific contributions in structural biology, x-ray, neutron and electron diffraction, and protein plasticity. He has served as a Professor of Biology at the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. CONTINUE READING

Raymond Gosling

At King's College London, Gosling worked on X-ray diffraction with Maurice Wilkins, analyzing samples of DNA which they prepared by hydrating and drawing out into thin filaments and photographing in a hydrogen atmosphere. Gosling was then assigned to Rosalind Franklin when she joined King's College London in 1951. Together they produced the first X-ray diffraction photographs of the "form B" paracrystalline arrays of highly hydrated DNA.  CONTINUE READING