Today, everyone recognizes the tiny twisty ladder that makes up every cell in our body and carries the genetic code that makes us who we are, but there was a time when we didn’t know what DNA looked like.
People knew it played a role in passing on genetic traits, but its structure was a total mystery. Whoever solved that mystery would become a science legend chiseled into history books forever.
The race for the solution was intense, with secret alliances, cut-throat betrayals, and a ruthless scramble to the finish line.
Well, not for everyone.
The most important competitor didn’t even know she was in a race. She was a brilliant, dedicated scientist, doing her brilliant, dedicated science. When she single-handedly reached the brink of unlocking DNA’s structure, these other guys swooped in, using her research without permission, and grabbed all the credit.
Who was this brilliant, overlooked scientist, and how did she uncover the secrets of DNA?
Franklin’s beginnings
Rosalind Franklin was born into a prominent Jewish family in England. Her parents valued education, sending her to top schools where she excelled in math and science.
Her parents also encouraged the free exchange of ideas, and Franklin definitely enjoyed that freedom. She loved debating, not for the sake of winning, but as a way to find the best answer.
Franklin’s niece, also named Rosalind Franklin, said about her aunt, “When she had an opinion, she’d share it, and she wasn’t shy. She came from a family where that was embraced.”
“Her grandmother was an educated woman. Her mom was educated, so that’s unusual in that way to come from a very strong lineage of Franklin women,” she added. “She knew not to be a wallflower or shy or not to be outspoken. She’d seen that demonstrated in the role models she had around her.”
The Franklins also upheld a strong commitment to compassion and public service, advancing charitable projects and helping Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Europe. These values became a cornerstone of Franklin’s character, fueling her drive to contribute meaningfully to the world.
Franklin’s niece explained that at her great-grandfather’s home, there was a stone embedded in the entry’s archway, with the Hebrew phrase “We welcome the stranger.”
“To me, that sort of summarizes, epitomizes what I believe our family, our values stood for as an Anglo-Jewish family,” she said. “That’s the environment in which Rosalind was raised.”
Franklin grew up to become a truly gifted scientist. She started her career investigating the mysteries of coal and carbon molecules. While that might not sound so exciting, her groundbreaking research led to key advances in gas masks, which had direct applications during World War II.
Franklin vs. Wilkins
How did she get from coal to DNA? The path ran through Paris. Her next job took her to the City of Light, where she mastered a technique called X-ray diffraction. It was a special method for observing structures that are too small to see through a microscope. It’s a highly complex technique that requires patience, immaculate precision, and a brilliant theoretical mind — all traits possessed by Franklin.
It was this expertise that led King’s College to recruit Franklin back to England to build an X-ray diffraction unit. This is where all the drama about DNA started.
When Franklin arrived at her new job, it was decided she would use her X-ray diffraction techniques to study DNA. But there was already a guy at the university studying DNA, Maurice Wilkins, who was out on vacation when this was discussed with Franklin. When he got back, he misunderstood Franklin’s role, seeing her as an assistant rather than an equal. This led to a pretty tense work environment, and things only got worse from there.
When Wilkins’ group was stuck on a problem, Franklin immediately solved it. The incident left him upset by what he saw as Franklin’s superior attitude. Instead of appreciating her help, he focused on the fact that there was nothing original about her suggestion. This was true; it was a textbook solution, but that’s all the more reason why Franklin likely had little patience for their failure to try such a simple solution. As her research assistant put it: “She didn’t suffer fools gladly at all. You either had to be on the ball, or you were lost in any discussion.”
Maybe two different scientists in the same situation would’ve found a way to work together, but not Franklin and Wilkins. They had two completely incompatible personalities. Franklin was assertive and didn’t mind having her ideas challenged, whereas Wilkins was non-confrontational.
It’s hard not to speculate about the role that sexism played. If Franklin were a man, would her assertiveness still be interpreted as arrogance? Would her high standards be perceived as a sign of superiority? Would Wilkins still have found it difficult to accept Franklin as an equal instead of a subordinate? Remember, this was the 1950s; there was still a dining room at King’s where women were not allowed.
Franklin’s innovations
Despite the obstacles, Franklin did what she did best: she focused on her work, where there were even bigger obstacles to overcome. DNA was an extremely difficult substance to capture. She innovated new techniques and built her own equipment in order to capture images of DNA that were previously impossible, like the stunning photo known as Photo 51.
“The Photo 51 was taken on Rosalind’s own adapted camera that she made,” Franklin’s niece explained. “So, everything she did to the nth degree. If she thought something could be improved, she’d improve upon it. And so she did that with her camera, and it was the best picture at the highest resolution that had ever been taken.”
It might not look like much, but to the trained eye, this image proves that DNA is shaped like a double helix, as well as a whole bunch of other groundbreaking information about its structure.
Despite Franklin’s central role in this discovery, today, this is known as the “Watson-Crick” model, not the “Rosalind Franklin” model.
Watson and Crick
Francis Crick and James D. Watson were scientists at Cambridge who were determined to be the first to build a complete model of the DNA structure. However, rather than conducting their own experiments, they focused on theoretical models, using all the available information to try to figure out how the building blocks of DNA fit together. It’s a perfectly valid form of science, and it requires great skill and expertise. However, you can’t solve a puzzle if you don’t have all the pieces, and the world simply didn’t have all the information yet.
Franklin was doing the hard research to uncover the actual data that would solve the problem. She was patient and methodical, totally unaware that Watson and Crick were in a desperate race to be first. Just how desperate were they? Well, they resorted to some pretty underhanded tactics that became more espionage than science.
For example, Watson developed a relationship with Wilkins to try to get as much intel as possible about the DNA work going on at King’s College. He got Wilkins to share information about Franklin’s unpublished research without revealing his ulterior motives. Watson even convinced Wilkins to show him a copy of Franklin’s Photo 51, all without her knowledge or permission.
As a result, just as Franklin was getting ready to publish a paper revealing her remarkable discoveries about the structure of DNA, Watson and Crick announced that they had created a model that solved the entire structure.
Their model completely overshadowed Franklin’s work, and they failed to properly credit her. They could have pointed out which discoveries were really hers, but they didn’t. They could have offered her joint authorship on their paper, but they didn’t. Watson and Crick were after the glory. They acted like they were in a mad dash for the finish line. The thing is, no one else was racing.
Franklin was a true scientist with impeccable values. She didn’t care about the glory or the credit. She just wanted to advance scientific knowledge and improve the world. When she learned that Watson and Crick had solved the complete model of DNA, she wasn’t bitter or disappointed. She was thrilled.
“She was happy for them. She was happy for the discovery because it was better for the world to have the discovery. That was her MO. I want the world to be a better place. That’s a beautiful thing,” Franklin’s niece said.
Rewriting history
Franklin died of cancer only five years later, never knowing the truth about how much they relied on her unpublished research when building their model. Watson and Crick became science legends. They went on to win the Nobel Prize, along with, guess who? Maurice Wilkins, the man who betrayed Franklin. She wasn’t even in the running because the Nobel committee had rules against awarding people who’ve already died. When Watson, Crick, and Wilkins accepted the award, none of them even mentioned Franklin in their acceptance speeches.
To add insult to injury, Watson published a book five years later that attempted to rewrite history. He downplayed Franklin’s contributions and portrayed her as an aggressive, irrational, arrogant woman.
Watson transformed the real Franklin into a caricature. An antagonist. An obstacle that stood in the way of scientific progress. Of course, it couldn’t be further from the truth. However, it may have helped Watson justify the tactics he employed in his desperate quest for glory.
For what it’s worth, Crick didn’t share Watson’s warped view of Franklin. In fact, when Crick read an early draft of Watson’s book, he didn’t like how Franklin was portrayed. Under pressure from Crick and others, Watson added a short epilogue to his book with some kind words for Franklin.
In his epilogue, Watson confesses that it took him way too long to appreciate the way intelligent women struggle to be “accepted by a scientific world which often regards women as mere diversion from serious thinking.” He also admits that his initial impressions of Franklin were often wrong. Although instead of just saying a few kind words in an epilogue, wouldn’t it have been nicer just to take out all the other stuff he said about her in the book? It’s like stabbing someone in the back and then handing them a tiny band-aid.
After the book came out, many people who actually knew Franklin were so appalled by Watson’s portrayal that there was a backlash. Franklin’s friend, Anne Sayre, published her own book, setting the record straight. It highlighted the truth about Franklin’s unsung contributions to the Watson-Crick model, and it introduced the world to the real scientist. She wasn’t a stern, joyless, uptight feminist crusader, but a brilliant scientist and a lover of life. “There was a lack of interest in seeing Rosalind for who she was and trying to understand her further,” Franklin’s niece explained. “The relationships that she had with people were so strong and deep and loving. And yet that’s not the part that anybody talks about or sees mostly when we think of Rosalind. She had so many friends. She was beloved. She had a sense of humor. So there were two Rosalinds in a way. She was also very outdoorsy.”
“Part of what I hope always to bring is that there’s a bigger personality. There’s a bigger story. There’s a bigger person out here than the one wronged woman that we read about in the science journals or the annals of history about the research, the discovery of DNA,” her niece added.
These days, Franklin is finally receiving the recognition that she never sought, but so rightfully deserves. Her contributions to science are now widely acknowledged, and she’s an inspiration to new generations of scientists. There’s even a spacecraft named after her.
Franklin’s legacy is a testament to her values and her belief in the power of knowledge to improve the world. In every area she touched, her work not only advanced scientific knowledge but also had practical applications that continue to improve our lives today.
“She wasn’t looking for fame and fortune,” Franklin’s niece said. “She loved her work. She loved what she did. The work she did was the betterment of mankind. All of those come from the inherent Jewish values of tikkun olam, repairing the world in whatever way you can.”
Today, Rosalind Franklin’s name stands as a beacon for scientists everywhere that true success isn’t about glory: It’s about making a difference. In the race she actually cared about, she was unbeatable.
