Rosalind Elsie Franklin Accomplishments

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born into a wealthy and influential Jewish family on July 25, 1920 in Notting Hill, London, England. Franklin attended North London Collegiate School in London and did extremely well in the areas of science. As Franklin excelled in the areas of science, she already decided at the age of 15 that she wanted to become a scientist. However, due to the reason that it was extremely difficult and highly frowned upon for women to obtain university education and a career at the time, Franklin's father strongly opposed her career choice. Nevertheless, Franklin continued to pursue a career in the science field.

In 1938, Franklin enrolled in Newnham College, Cambridge, to study chemistry. Franklin received her bachelor’s degree from Newnham College in 1941. Then Franklin went on to work as a assistant research officer at the

British Coal Utilisation Research Association. There, Franklin studied the porosity of coal and published several papers on the structures and uses of coal and graphite. In 1946, Franklin was appointed and worked with crystallographer Jacques Mering at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de L'Etat in Paris, where she was taught x-ray diffraction. Just five years later, Franklin went on to work as a research associate at King’s College London in London, England in the biophysics unit. Biophysics is the area of physics that Franklin studied, which is the branch of science that deals with the application of physics to processes of biology to understand how biological systems work. In other words, Biophysics is the study of life at every level in order to discover new areas to study and create new useful tools.
Franklin had numerous achievements and contributions to physics. While working at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association, studying the porosity of coal, Franklin’s research papers were used to develop the gas masks that helped keep the British soldiers safe during World War II. This is a great contribution, both to physics and war effort. Then at King's’ College London, Franklin, along with a student working with her at the time, Raymond Gosling, discovered A and B forms of DNA, and took images that showed a definite helical structure. The famous image, also known as photograph 51, later provided substantial evidence to support the theory that the structure of DNA is a double helix.
In addition, Franklin also achieved a breakthrough in structural virology. After Franklin left King’s College London in 1953, she went on to lead her own research group at Birkbeck College. At Birkbeck College was where Franklin studied virus particles and ended up making discoveries about the tobacco mosaic virus and polio. In just a total time span of 5 years, Franklin had already published 17 papers, focusing on viruses. Subsequently, Franklin’s discoveries about the tobacco mosaic virus and polio will give way to modern virology, which is the study of viruses.
Throughout Franklin’s career and life, Franklin was characterized and described as a logical and precise individual.

In whatever Franklin did, she wholeheartedly pursued it with her heart and gave her full potential. Despite her thorough and diligent ways of conducting her work and research, it did not mean she was respected by everyone. In fact, during her time at King’s College London, Franklin did not get along with her colleague, Maurice Wilkins. Without Franklin’s permission or knowledge, Wilkins disclosed Franklin's photograph 51 to competing scientist James Watson, who was also working on DNA. Eventually, James Watson and his partner Francis Crick used Franklin’s photograph 51 to back up their theory of the DNA model structure. It was due to the conflict between Franklin and Wilkins that played a key factor in Franklin leaving King’s College and relocating to Birkbeck College. Franklin’s life and career was cut short when Franklin discovered she had ovarian cancer and passed away on April 16, 1958, at the age of only 37. Nevertheless, Franklin still managed to contribute immensely to physics and the world in many

ways.