Rosalind Franklin was so much more than the 'wronged heroine' of DNA

[NNadir]

An editorial in the current issue of Nature:

Rosalind Franklin was so much more than the ‘wronged heroine’ of DNA

It's open sourced, but some excerpts:

At the centre of Rosalind Franklin’s tombstone in London’s Willesden Jewish Cemetery is the word “scientist”. This is followed by the inscription, “Her research and discoveries on viruses remain of lasting benefit to mankind.”

As one of the twentieth century’s pre-eminent scientists, Franklin’s work has benefited all of humanity. The one-hundredth anniversary of her birth this month is prompting much reflection on her career and research contributions, not least Franklin’s catalytic role in unravelling the structure of DNA.

She is best known for an X-ray diffraction image that she and her graduate student Raymond Gosling published in 19531, which was key to the determination of the DNA double helix.

But Franklin’s remarkable work on DNA amounts to a fraction of her record and legacy. She was a tireless investigator of nature’s secrets, and worked across biology, chemistry and physics, with a focus on research that mattered to society. She made important advances in the science of coal and carbon, and she became an expert in the study of viruses that cause plant and human diseases. In essence, it is because of Franklin, her collaborators and successors, that today’s researchers are able to use tools such as DNA sequencing and X-ray crystallography to investigate viruses such as SARS-CoV-2...

...Franklin wanted to understand the porosity of coal, mainly to learn how to make it burn more efficiently. But, as Patricia Fara, a historian of science at the University of Cambridge, UK, points out, the porosity of coal was also a key factor in the effectiveness of Second World War gas masks, which contained activated-charcoal filters. As such, Franklin indirectly aided in the design of the personal protective equipment of her day...

...From coal, Franklin moved on to the study of viruses, which would fascinate her for the remainder of her life. During the 1950s, she spent five productive years at Birkbeck College in London using her X-ray skills to determine the structure of RNA in the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), which attacks plants and destroys tobacco crops. The virus was discovered in the 1890s...

...With the structure of TMV resolved, Franklin set out to study other plant viruses blighting important agricultural crops, including the potato, turnip, tomato and pea. Then, in 1957, she pivoted again to begin studying the virus that causes polio, which is structurally similar to the turnip yellow mosaic virus. At the time, polio was a feared communicable disease. It has since been mostly eradicated, although cases linger in Pakistan and Afghanistan...

...In 1956, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and she died two years later at the age of just 37. Her collaborators Aaron Klug and John Finch published the poliovirus structure the following year, dedicating the paper to her memory4. Klug would go on to be awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on elucidating the structure of viruses.

A broader story than the one you usually hear.

[soothsayer]

1. Wow.

[Cicada]

2. Watson and Crick stole her data from her desk drawer

That’s what revealed dna

[John ONeill]

3. Rosalind Franklin

'Watson and Crick stole her data from her desk drawer'
It's actually a lot more complicated than that. The Nobel for discovering DNA's structure was actually awarded to THREE scientists - Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins. Wilkins was originally from New Zealand. (It's nice that my country had a representative at the start of the revolution in biology, just as Lord Rutherford was at the start of the revolution in physics - even though Enzed currently proclaims itself nuclear-free and GE free.)
Wilkins had already made X-ray photos of DNA samples that suggested a helix, and was still working on them. However, the laboratory director had told Franklin that her team was the only one working on the problem, but had not told Wilkins the same. Franklin had the best sample of DNA to work on, but she had already told Watson and Crick that their model was wrong ( which it was - it was inside out .) She was about to leave King's College, but told her research partner, Raymond Gosling, to show Wilkins a particularly clear X-ray she had taken of the 'B' form of DNA. Wilkins showed this to Crick and Watson, and then checked their correct model which Franklin's work helped inspire.
Franklin died before the Nobel was awarded, and so was not eligible to share it - it's only awarded to the living. While recuperating from an operation on her tumours, she stayed with Francis Crick, and formed a strong friendship with his wife, Odile.