How Did Rosalind Franklin Contribute To Chemistry

Rosalind Franklin was a renowned English chemist and talented X-ray crystallographer who managed to excel in the male-dominated world of science. She was a genius beyond her time, who not only devoted her life to science, but actually enjoyed the process of it as well as the discovery and outcomes. Rosalind, through her research of coal, managed to develop a safer and more effective gas mask, in turn saving many lives in WW2. She also published several landmark papers which are still cited today in many scientific works. However, despite these achievements, many injustices were done to her in her short life and career. These lead to her never being able to be truly credited for perhaps her most important work - her contribution to the discovery

Though there were other women in the science world at the time, as stated before, it was mainly male-dominated. Though she got along well with her male counterparts in the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l'Etat in Paris, she sometimes felt that there was still an “elite boy’s club” culture established by the lack of female scientists. This feeling only got worse when, after being over-exposed to x-rays, she decided to move back to England to continue her work in crystallography. She was offered a position at the King’s College, where she was put down and subordinated by the men in the laboratory, especially Maurice Wilkins, who was in conflict with her over who was in charge. This was due to miscommunication and most likely of the fault of the J.T Randall, the director of the biophysics

She further improved her skills and eventually came to discover through the x-rays that there were two different forms of DNA, the A form and the B form. Franklin chose to focus more on the A form when she presented her findings to an audience, which included James Watson, who was sent by Francis Crick, to spy on her findings. Watson and Crick were rival scientists trying to win the race to find the structure of DNA - before the unknowing Franklin did. When Watson reported back with her information on the A form of DNA, the two were quick to build a model. However, after being invited to the showcase, Franklin came to examine it and nearly immediately disproved the model, showing the reality of the situation - Watson and Crick’s model was a failure. The head of the lab that the two worked at banned them from working on models again, leaving them humiliated. Then, in May of 1952, Franklin took the clearest photo of the B form of DNA she ever had taken and labeled it as “Photo 51”. She stores it away for later examination, but it somehow ends up in the hands of Wilkins, who shows it to Watson. Soon, Watson and Crick, using the photograph and Franklin’s other research, are able to figure out the double helix structure, dimensions, and arrangement of components of DNA. They publish their findings in a series of