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Yes. That is true. She passed away before the Nobel. Anyone interested in this topic should read "The Double Helix" by Watson. It is a real page turner and disc

Yes. That is true. She passed away before the Nobel. Anyone interested in this topic should read "The Double Helix" by Watson. It is a real page turner and discusses how Watson and Crick kind of stole Franklin's research.

btilly 6y ago
Absolutely. Now there is an interesting question. How could Watson and Crick have figured out Franklin's data faster than she did? The answer turns out to be coincidence. There are 230 crystallographic groups. As a crystallographer, Franklin knew them all, and had to rule them all out. However Watson had done his PhD research on a protein that happened to have the same crystallographic group as DNA. So he knew one group really, really well and it turned out to be the right one. Sometimes luck is more important than skill.
- dekhn 6y ago
  I don't think what you said is accurate. First, the work was done in fibre diffraction (2d pattern), not crystal diffractionso I'm not certain that crystallographic groups even apply (typically for representing 3d symmetry groups). Second, nothing in the W&C paper has to do with determining the crystallographic group, rather they proposed a model which was consistent with the diffraction data, but also with a wide range of other observations, such as Chargaff's rules, which led to the modelling of base pairs with the correct eno/ketol forms. What Franklin did know was that the structural was helical, but not that it was a double helix with antiparallel strands (and that's what W&C posited, leading to the most wonderfully stated conclusion of all time ("it has not escaped our notice...") A few other important points: Franklin published a paper in the same journal edition as W&C with her own work. W&C thanked Franklin (she's in the acknowledgements). She got more credit than people today believe (mainly because of the misleading book "Dark Lady" and the terrible book "The Double Helix"). The best original source I've found on this is The Eighth Day of Creation, which is based on primary sources (Franklin's notebooks which she willed to Aaron Klug, along wiht interviews with most of the people involved). After reading that I concluded that the work Franklin did on this project did not warrant a Nobel Prize even if she had not died before it was awarded. (my PhD is on DNA structure, and I spent a huge amount of time researching its history)
  - Pulcinella 6y ago
    I will second “The Eighth Day of Creation” (which despite its cool title, has nothing to do with religion). I can’t agree with your conclusion, though. It’s very clear she should have been awarded the prize, not Wilkins (who I think should not have received the prize even “in place of” Franklin). The book paints a picture of Wilkins not doing much more than management work and training Raymond Gosling (Franklin’s PhD student who did the actual work and probably should have won in her place, if not Chargaff or someone else). Of course, the book also makes it very clear that John Randall told Wilkins one thing and Franklin something very different about their working relationship that caused their relationship to be very tense and Franklin to largely cut Wilkins out of her work. Why Randall did this and never clarified or why Wilkins or Franklin never sought clarification from him is unclear.
    - dekhn 6y ago
      But... what exactly did Rosalind Franklin do in this case, other than collect the raw data (not Nobel-worthy) and notice that it was consistent with a helix (not enough of the elucidation to be useful for molecular biology)? She didn't come up with any of the subtle guesses about nucleic acid pairing, antiparallel strands, or the exact atomic positions (later shown to be mildly erroneous due to the water/alcohol content). it's clear Franklin was mistreated, but far from clear that there is evidence of Nobel-worthy work by Franklin in this case.

btilly 6y ago

Absolutely. Now there is an interesting question. How could Watson and Crick have figured out Franklin's data faster than she did? The answer turns out to be coincidence. There are 230 crystallographic groups. As a crystallographer, Franklin knew them all, and had to rule them all out. However Watson had done his PhD research on a protein that happened to have the same crystallographic group as DNA. So he knew one group really, really well and it turned out to be the right one. Sometimes luck is more important than skill.

dekhn 6y ago
I don't think what you said is accurate. First, the work was done in fibre diffraction (2d pattern), not crystal diffractionso I'm not certain that crystallographic groups even apply (typically for representing 3d symmetry groups). Second, nothing in the W&C paper has to do with determining the crystallographic group, rather they proposed a model which was consistent with the diffraction data, but also with a wide range of other observations, such as Chargaff's rules, which led to the modelling of base pairs with the correct eno/ketol forms. What Franklin did know was that the structural was helical, but not that it was a double helix with antiparallel strands (and that's what W&C posited, leading to the most wonderfully stated conclusion of all time ("it has not escaped our notice...") A few other important points: Franklin published a paper in the same journal edition as W&C with her own work. W&C thanked Franklin (she's in the acknowledgements). She got more credit than people today believe (mainly because of the misleading book "Dark Lady" and the terrible book "The Double Helix"). The best original source I've found on this is The Eighth Day of Creation, which is based on primary sources (Franklin's notebooks which she willed to Aaron Klug, along wiht interviews with most of the people involved). After reading that I concluded that the work Franklin did on this project did not warrant a Nobel Prize even if she had not died before it was awarded. (my PhD is on DNA structure, and I spent a huge amount of time researching its history)
- Pulcinella 6y ago
  I will second “The Eighth Day of Creation” (which despite its cool title, has nothing to do with religion). I can’t agree with your conclusion, though. It’s very clear she should have been awarded the prize, not Wilkins (who I think should not have received the prize even “in place of” Franklin). The book paints a picture of Wilkins not doing much more than management work and training Raymond Gosling (Franklin’s PhD student who did the actual work and probably should have won in her place, if not Chargaff or someone else). Of course, the book also makes it very clear that John Randall told Wilkins one thing and Franklin something very different about their working relationship that caused their relationship to be very tense and Franklin to largely cut Wilkins out of her work. Why Randall did this and never clarified or why Wilkins or Franklin never sought clarification from him is unclear.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    But... what exactly did Rosalind Franklin do in this case, other than collect the raw data (not Nobel-worthy) and notice that it was consistent with a helix (not enough of the elucidation to be useful for molecular biology)? She didn't come up with any of the subtle guesses about nucleic acid pairing, antiparallel strands, or the exact atomic positions (later shown to be mildly erroneous due to the water/alcohol content). it's clear Franklin was mistreated, but far from clear that there is evidence of Nobel-worthy work by Franklin in this case.