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Stephen J. Greenberg, MSLS, PhD
Coordinator of Public Services
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Department of Health and Human Services

301-435-4995
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Papers of Rosalind Franklin Added to the National Library of Medicine's
Profiles in Science Web site:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/press_releases/profiles_franklin_added07.htm
l 

National Institutes of Health
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 6, 2007
National Library of Medicine
Robert Mehnert
Kathy Cravedi
(301) 496-6308
[log in to unmask]
 
The National Library of Medicine, a part of the National Institutes of
Health, announces the release of an extensive selection from the papers
of Rosalind Franklin, a chemist and crystallographer who did ground
breaking work in shedding light on the structure of DNA, on its Profiles
in Science website at http://www.profiles.nlm.nih.gov
<http://www.profiles.nlm.nih.gov> .

The online exhibit features correspondence, published articles, photos,
lab notebooks, and reports from Franklin's files. An introductory
exhibit section places Franklin's achievements in historical context.
The Library, in collaboration with the Churchill Archives Center at
Cambridge University, has digitized and made available over the World
Wide Web a selection of the Franklin Papers for use by educators,
researchers, and the public. This brings to 21 the number of notable
researchers and public health officials whose personal and professional
records are featured on the site.

Franklin began her scientific career analyzing the structure of coal and
carbon during World War II, and became an internationally recognized
expert in that field. For five years before her premature death, she did
path-breaking research that elucidated the structure of plant viruses.
Yet chemist and crystallographer Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) is now
best known for the research that occupied her briefly in between: the
structure of DNA.

Early in 1953, when Francis Crick and James Watson were struggling to
build an accurate theoretical model of the DNA molecule, it was
Franklin's meticulous X-ray diffraction photos and analysis that gave
them crucial clues to DNA's structure, and allowed them to win the race
for the double helix. Franklin didn't know that there was a race going
on, and she never knew that Crick and Watson had access to her
then-unpublished data.

Soon after the discovery, Franklin finished her DNA work and moved on to
another institution to study viruses. In 1962, four years after her
untimely death from ovarian cancer, Crick and Watson received the Nobel
Prize for their DNA model, still silent about Franklin's contributions.
Watson's 1968 memoir, The Double Helix, featured an unkind caricature of
Franklin, and provoked outraged protests from her friends, family, and
colleagues. Since then she has been recognized and celebrated for her
DNA research, even becoming a feminist icon for some. Yet the DNA story
often obscures her other brilliant work.

"Rosalind Franklin was a gifted experimental scientist who greatly
expanded the application of X-ray crystallography to molecular biology.
Her X-ray diffraction studies were essential to modeling complex
biological molecules such as DNA and virus proteins," said Donald A. B.
Lindberg, M.D., director of the National Library of Medicine.

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born in London in 1920. She showed an early
aptitude for math and science, and chose to pursue a scientific career
while still in high school. She majored in physical chemistry at
Cambridge University, graduating in 1941. After a one-year research
fellowship at Cambridge, she became an assistant research officer at the
British Coal Utilization Research Association. There she conducted
original research into the micro-structure of different types of coals,
to better account for variations in their permeability and other
properties. In 1946 she took a research position at the Central
Laboratory of the National Chemical Department in Paris, where she
mastered X-ray crystallography, a technique for imaging molecular
structures.

Franklin returned to England in 1951 to take a job at the now famous
Randall Biophysics Unit at King's College, University of London. There
she used X-ray diffraction to look at the structure of DNA, discovering
that it could take two different forms, and coming close to determining
its helical configuration. Misunderstandings and personality clashes
kept her relatively isolated from her colleagues there. One colleague,
Maurice Wilkins, was in regular contact with Watson and Crick at
Cambridge, and showed them one of Franklin's X-ray diffraction photos,
thus providing them crucial information about DNA structure.

In early 1953 Franklin left King's College for a more congenial post at
Birkbeck College, University of London. At Birkbeck she assembled a
talented research team and carried out X-ray diffraction studies of
plant viruses, notably tobacco mosaic virus. Using samples contributed
by virus laboratories in England, America, and Europe, Franklin
discovered how the virus protein shells are structured and where the
genetic material is located.

Profiles in Science was launched in September 1998 by the National
Library of Medicine. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is the
world's largest library of the health sciences. For more information,
visit the website at www.nlm.nih.gov.

###

Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the National Library of Medicine is the
world's largest library of the health sciences. For more information,
visit the Web site at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/>
.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation's Medical Research
Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.
S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal
agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational
medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures
for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and
its programs, visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/> .