THE KB 30.05.21
CURIOUS CASES
BEHIND ‘ PHOTO 51’ & BEYOND
‘ Science for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it
goes, it I based on fact, experience and experiment’ – this widely known famous
quote was stated by an unsung hero, often less prioritized, supreme genius yet
too much underrated ‘ The dark lady of DNA’ ( by Barbara Maddox) , a British
chemist ; Rosalind Franklin.
It was evident very early when she first stepped in the King’s College of London on 1951 at the age of 31. Born in 1920; A passionate, dedicated, calm and composed yet rebellious, extremely brilliant with inventory thought depicts Rosalind Franklin the best. She was an enigma at that time. She started schooling previously at St. Pauls’ and completed her study from Cambridge University in Chemistry till 1938, worked in CURA(Coal utilization Research Association) till 1947 and learned X ray crystallography from Mareel Mathieu.
Her
times in King’s College London was the most significant chapter of her life
where she worked upon one of the ground breaking discovery of all time not only
in science but also for humanity that is to reveal the double helix structure
of DNA which was still under the mystery. She faced many facets of challenges
of being woman and also being a jew but she was determined and disciplined on
her work. She used to work intensely in the lab mostly on the X ray crystallography to reveal the actual structure of DNA double helix. She along
with her assistant Gosling continued
to excel in their work. The guide of Franklin was Maurice Wilkins who was envious on his research scholar, never gave
the credit and also used to torture mentally to Franklin and unethically wanted
to reveal all of her work to his close friend JD Watson who was also working on the same purpose in another place
names as Cavendish Laboratory along
with his senior Francois Crick, they
were trying to reveal the DNA structure in theoretically and were perplexed
about the position of H-bond in
double helix structure. Rosalind
Franklin was spending her time and as a true perfectionist she used to take the
near perfect conclusive evident on the X ray crystallographic image of DNA
double helix for 50 times and took 100 hours to make famous ‘photo 51’; the
most perfect image was the 51st one. That’s why the number 51 is
very significant in Franklin’s life, as a full time researcher she started her
work in King’s College on 1951 too. Unfortunately her tremendous hard work
had been unethically robbed by Wilkins and helped Watson and Crick to solve the
puzzle of DNA double helix model. Later in life Watson became a good friend of
Franklin but at that time Watson also betrayed Franklin. Watson, Crick and Wilkins awarded Nobel prize on 1962 for the discovery
of DNA double helix model and the ill fortunate Franklin died in ovarian cancer
on 1958 at the age of 38 only. She was
fallen ill during her work according to
Gosling.
So,
this was the epitome of a tragic story of science, excellent researcher,
amazing personality of Franklin. She got her credit after the death when whole
scenario came in front, during her time she never got any recognition about her
work. Now she is called as ‘ mother of
DNA double helix model’. Very few people knows that she was very keen to
study in the field of virology also, she described the 3D structure of TMV( tomato mosaic virus), depicted the
structures of coal and graphite.
Confrontation when cornered
was Rosalind’s tactic. The alternative- passive acquiescence in something she
knew to be wrong – was intolerable, totally contradictory to her faith in the
provable truth of science.
