James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA. But, did they steal data from a female colleague, Rosalind Franklin, and claim credit for themselves? Basically, Franklin worked in the same lab as Wilkins which was down the hall from Watson and Crick's lab. Although Franklin and Wilkins held equal positions in the lab, Wilkins regarded Franklin as merely a technician (not a real scientist) due to the fact that she was female. This obviously created tension between them. Down the hall, Watson and Crick were trying to figure out the structure of DNA. Franklin was also working on this problem. She was an expert at taking pictures of crystals and had some beautiful pictures of DNA.
One day, Wilkins took her pictures and showed them to Watson and Crick without her permission or knowledge (a big no-no in the science community). After looking at the pictures, it became clear to Watson and Crick that DNA was a double-helical structure. They immediately published their findings and basically became famous overnight. Although their discovery relied heavily on Franklin's data, she was never equally credited. Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 and although the men received the Nobel Prize in 1962, Franklin was not included because Nobel Prizes are not given posthumously. A raw deal in my opinion. On a side note, James Watson continues to be a real gem of a human. Here is an article from 2007 that highlights his true colors.
4 comments:
This is an amazing story, ... and made even more so b/c the thievery of the find is never discussed, ... or at least I've never heard it discussed, ... when people teach/learn about DNA.
With that said, I do what the hard-scientists might call "soft science, ... so what do I know.
E, you blow to bits the "nerdy person transferring small volumes of clear liquid from one test tube to another" stereotype. I mean, I know you can be nerdy when you need to and all...
...But if a couple of scoundrels stole your data, I have full confidence in your ability to rip off the lab coat (not to mention those ghastly goggles) and kick their asses, non-scientist style.
To give credit to Watson, his wonderful book "The Double Helix" is the very source of this backstory! He never hid the fact that Frankin's X-ray diffraction images were essential to his and Crick's discovery, nor the manner in which this particular one was obtained.
Scientists are generally either good experimentalists or good theorists - not both. Franklin was a very good experimentalist but perhaps not a good theorist; she refused to believe that DNA was helical even after Watson and Crick showed her mathematically why her own images proved that it was.
(Also, a minor point: Watson and Crick were at Cambridge, Wilkins and Franklin at King's College in London. They were not "down the hall".)
All that said, Rosalind Franklin certainly deserves recognition for her work, and she was probably more deserving of a Nobel than Wilkins. Her death prevented that. I believe that the recognition she does receive today is due almost entirely to Watson's book. He, at least, wanted to see her equally credited.
"But now the race was over and, as one of the winners, I knew the tale was not simple and certainly not as the newspapers reported. Chiefly it was a matter of five people: Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Linus Pauling, Francis Crick, and me." -- James Watson, from the introduction to "The Double Helix"
Phil- Great insight. Thanks for the comment.
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