D. Lewin

Woman of the Day chemist and X-Ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin of London, the Dark Lady of DNA, died OTD 1958 aged just 37. She worked out that the structure of DNA had two chains and took Photo 51, the first known X-ray image of the double helix. Two weeks later, having had sight of her unpublished evidence without her knowledge, James Watson and Francis Crick built their now celebrated model of DNA as a double helix and shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology with Maurice Wilkins. Rosalind had always been gifted academically and excelled in sports including cricket and hockey. When she was six, her Aunt Mamie said, "Rosalind is alarmingly clever - she spends all her time doing arithmetic for pleasure, and invariably gets her sums right." The only subject Rosalind wasn’t good at was music. Music director at St Paul’s Girls’ School, Gustav Holst, once called upon her mother to ask if she had either hearing difficulties. She received a post-grad fellowship to conduct research in physical chemistry Cambridge in 1941 but gave it up the following year for the war effort combining her work investigating the structural changes caused by heating carbons with Air Raid Warden duties in London. From 1947 to 1950, Rosalind studied X-ray diffraction technology, a non-destructive technique for analysing the structure of materials primarily at atomic or molecular level, at the the State Chemical Laboratory in Paris. In 1951, she joined the Biophysical Laboratory at King’s College, London, as a research fellow where she used the same technique to study DNA, then something of a scientific mystery. In May 1952, Rosalind and her PhD student Raymond Gosling took an X-ray photo in the basement below the chemistry labs of the Medical Research Council department at King’s College. Photo 51 depicted a stark cross of black reflections with unmistakable evidence of a helical structure in a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fibre. In late February 1953, Rosalind recorded in her notebooks that the structure of DNA had two chains. She had already established that DNA existed in two forms and recorded her precise measurements of the unit cell (the smallest repeating unit) of the DNA crystal. "The results suggest a helical structure which must be very closely packed containing probably 2, 3 or 4 coaxial nucleic acid chains per helical unit and having the phosphate groups near the outside…Conclusion: Big helix in several chains, phosphates on outside, phosphate-phosphate inter-helical bonds disrupted by water. Phosphate links available to proteins." She didn’t know that her colleague, Maurice Wilkins, had shown Photo 51 in late January 1953 to James Watson while he was visiting King’s. Nor did she know that someone had shown Watson and Crick a copy of the Medical Research Council's report summarising the work of all principal researchers - including Rosalind’s - in February 1953. Two weeks later, Watson and Crick used Photo 51 to develop their structural model of DNA, the double helix. The irony is that Rosalind’s own paper, co-authored by her student RG Gosling and summarising her results, was already ready to go by the time news reached King's that Watson and Crick had cracked the secret of DNA. That paper was published on 25 April 1953 with a late amendment by Rosalind to acknowledge the breakthrough: “Thus our general ideas are not inconsistent with the model proposed by Watson and Crick in the preceding communication”. How could they be anything else? The Watson-Crick findings were based on her data. In 1962, Watson, Crick and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology. Watson’s The Double Helix, published in 1968, contained the admission, “Rosy, of course, did not directly give us her data. For that matter, no one at King's realized they were in our hands.” By then, he was a Harvard professor and Nobel laureate. By then, Rosalind had been dead for ten years. At that time, Nobel Prizes could not be awarded posthumously. Rosalind passed away in 1958 at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer, the day before she was scheduled to reveal the structure of tobacco mosaic virus - the first virus to be discovered - at an international fair in Brussels. Aaron Klug, a member of her team, continued her research and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982. "In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind."

$TheAttagirls's tweet photo. Woman of the Day chemist and X-Ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin of London, the Dark Lady of DNA, died OTD 1958 aged just 37. She worked out that the structure of DNA had two chains and took Photo 51, the first known X-ray image of the double helix. Two weeks later, having had sight of her unpublished evidence without her knowledge, James Watson and Francis Crick built their now celebrated model of DNA as a double helix and shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology with Maurice Wilkins. Rosalind had always been gifted academically and excelled in sports including cricket and hockey. When she was six, her Aunt Mamie said, "Rosalind is alarmingly clever - she spends all her time doing arithmetic for pleasure, and invariably gets her sums right." The only subject Rosalind wasn’t good at was music. Music director at St Paul’s Girls’ School, Gustav Holst, once called upon her mother to ask if she had either hearing difficulties. She received a post-grad fellowship to conduct research in physical chemistry Cambridge in 1941 but gave it up the following year for the war effort combining her work investigating the structural changes caused by heating carbons with Air Raid Warden duties in London. From 1947 to 1950, Rosalind studied X-ray diffraction technology, a non-destructive technique for analysing the structure of materials primarily at atomic or molecular level, at the the State Chemical Laboratory in Paris. In 1951, she joined the Biophysical Laboratory at King’s College, London, as a research fellow where she used the same technique to study DNA, then something of a scientific mystery. In May 1952, Rosalind and her PhD student Raymond Gosling took an X-ray photo in the basement below the chemistry labs of the Medical Research Council department at King’s College. Photo 51 depicted a stark cross of black reflections with unmistakable evidence of a helical structure in a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fibre. In late February 1953, Rosalind recorded in her notebooks that the structure of DNA had two chains. She had already established that DNA existed in two forms and recorded her precise measurements of the unit cell (the smallest repeating unit) of the DNA crystal. "The results suggest a helical structure which must be very closely packed containing probably 2, 3 or 4 coaxial nucleic acid chains per helical unit and having the phosphate groups near the outside…Conclusion: Big helix in several chains, phosphates on outside, phosphate-phosphate inter-helical bonds disrupted by water. Phosphate links available to proteins." She didn’t know that her colleague, Maurice Wilkins, had shown Photo 51 in late January 1953 to James Watson while he was visiting King’s. Nor did she know that someone had shown Watson and Crick a copy of the Medical Research Council's report summarising the work of all principal researchers - including Rosalind’s - in February 1953. Two weeks later, Watson and Crick used Photo 51 to develop their structural model of DNA, the double helix. The irony is that Rosalind’s own paper, co-authored by her student RG Gosling and summarising her results, was already ready to go by the time news reached King's that Watson and Crick had cracked the secret of DNA. That paper was published on 25 April 1953 with a late amendment by Rosalind to acknowledge the breakthrough: “Thus our general ideas are not inconsistent with the model proposed by Watson and Crick in the preceding communication”. How could they be anything else? The Watson-Crick findings were based on her data. In 1962, Watson, Crick and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology. Watson’s The Double Helix, published in 1968, contained the admission, “Rosy, of course, did not directly give us her data. For that matter, no one at King's realized they were in our hands.” By then, he was a Harvard professor and Nobel laureate. By then, Rosalind had been dead for ten years. At that time, Nobel Prizes could not be awarded posthumously. Rosalind passed away in 1958 at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer, the day before she was scheduled to reveal the structure of tobacco mosaic virus - the first virus to be discovered - at an international fair in Brussels. Aaron Klug, a member of her team, continued her research and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982. "In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind."$

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D. Lewin @DPLewin

over 1 year ago

Found this a really interesting conversation - important points about the language of ‘disadvantage’ @marcrowland73

Will Hutton

@williamnhutton

over 1 year ago

Honest talking about how just the lack of language capacity holds working class children back - and what to do about it. Improving social mobility through education and language with Lee Elliot Major https://t.co/L0HbkDOTrR via @Audioboom

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Who to follow

Independent Primary English Consultant based in Oxfordshire. Co-author of Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary Engish: Pitching high and including all.

DPLewin retweeted

A Bindoff @a_bindoff

almost 2 years ago

Dear Twitter friends, I’ve spent the last seven years with my favourite Austen heroine, Jane Fairfax. Truly a woman for our time, she is brilliant, passionate and highly constrained by poverty. I’d be incredibly grateful for endorsements and retweets xx https://t.co/t9ql3eERWs

D. Lewin @DPLewin

almost 2 years ago

Really helpful prompts and insights from @marcrowland73

Marc Rowland @marcrowland73

almost 2 years ago

Building a deep understanding of the lived experience of disadvantaged pupils at school. I hope this resource is helpful.

marcrowland73's tweet photo. Building a deep understanding of the lived experience of disadvantaged pupils at school. I hope this resource is helpful. https://t.co/EOPngVkyfk

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D. Lewin @DPLewin

over 2 years ago

@HarryBrighouse1 I’m so sorry to hear this news - I was so fortunate to get to know your dad a little as a headteacher here in Oxford. He was a great friend of our school, an inspiration to many teachers and a kind and generous person. My thoughts are with Liz and all the family.