‘Not a victim’: Rosalind Franklin’s role in solving the mystery of DNA structure

New Delhi : It is a story often told and retold in scientific lore, a story of denial, yet also of inspiration, the story of Rosalind Franklin. The iconic British scientist’s work, some of it shared without her knowledge, helped James Watson and Francis Crick establish the double-helix structure of DNA — and they walked away with all the credit. In their 1954 paper describing the double helix, however, they acknowledged that, without Franklin’s data, “the formulation of our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible”. In an email, Hannah Franklin said the article brings an important message: “that despite not being formally acknowledged as an equal contributor at the time, and facing a series of challenges and unfortunate events including the publication of James Watson’s misleading ‘fictional’ book years after she died, she should not be remembered as a victim of hardship or misogyny". Bruce noted that two teams were working on DNA structure: while Wilkins and Franklin were gathering experimental analysis using X-ray data, Watson and Crick were working on data.