Photograph 51, Rosalind Franklin and DNA Structure

Abstract

The Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine was awarded in 1962 to Watson, Crick and Wilkins, after the death of Rosalind Franklin who passed away in 1958. This mini-review focuses on Franklin’s contributions to the double helix discovery. The title of this paper, Photograph 51, describes a x-ray diffraction image of DNA (B form) taken by Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling (Note 1). Its importance will be described, as well as Franklin’s other contributions to the double helix discovery. Of immense importance is what Crick and Watson themselves said: Without Franklin’s data, “the formulation of our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible” (Note 2). This statement makes it clear that Franklin rightly deserves to be the 4^th partner in the discovery of the structure of DNA, along with Crick, Watson and Wilkins.