WHAT? You say you've never heard of her? Well to be fair, I'll admit I hadn't either until a few years ago. I had marvelous history teachers and was an avid reader and even I missed her. And that's a damn shame but it's also exactly why this month exists and why I'm doing these profiles so strap in because (and I suspect I'll use this picture a lot this month...)
Alright, so where to begin. Well as I mentioned the woman above could probably reasonably be considered a scientific prodigy. Born into a wealthy family in England in 1920 she made the most of the privileges she was afforded. Affluent, logical, dedicated and intelligent Ms. Franklin here didn't have time for indecision. She knew the path she wanted to walk was that of a scientist by the time she was 15. She threw herself headlong into the process of studying to become one and was working on what would become one of the biggest breakthroughs of the 20th century by the time she was in her early thirties. So already we have a woman in the 1950's with a doctorate and working on pioneering research. Even factoring in the leg up her wealth and place of birth gave her that's nothing to scoff at. She deserves all the props possible for those accomplishments.
Now I've been beating around the bush on what she actually did but here's the deal, Rosalind Franklin is responsibile in many ways for the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA and was the one responsible for the studies that led to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. She was the first to photograph the structure on a machine she'd personally refined and was inching closer and closer to the model we currently use to understand the structure.
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| without her you probably wouldn't know what to make out of candy for your 3rd grade sceince class |
So why doesn't she get the credit? Oh lord this is why I wish history were taught differently because it's a wonderful bit of drama and the villain of this story is a thieving male scientist with whom she had a beef. As far as I'm concerned his name's not worth detailing here but you can dig into it in the links at the end of the article. Basically, Rosalind was VERY close to unravelling the structure. She was about to publish a paper on her findings after taking an amazing photo of the molecule using specialized X-ray techniques when another scientist, the one who she was in a bit of a feud with, shared her unpublished discovery with another scientist who was working on his own DNA model.
After stealing her photo they used what they learned from it to co-opt her discovery and publish their own model of DNA ahead of her and usurp credit for the finding. Franklin wasn't far away from the breakthrough herself.
Wrapping this up, Franklin would pass away in 1958 at the young age of 37 from ovarian cancer without the full weight of her discovery being realized or proper credit given. Had she lived longer who knows what other breakthroughs she'd have had. That said, the major one she did have is extraordinary. Rosalind Franklin's understanding of the structure of the DNA molecule can be said to have helped pave the way for numerous other scientific advancements, including proving Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, catching criminals through forensic DNA testing as well as a greater understanding of genetic illness. She got a raw deal in her day and it's time for her to get the respect she deserves in the hear and now.
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