After the Double Helix : Rosalind Franklin's Research on Tobacco mosaic virus

Rosalind Franklin is best known for her informative X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA that provided vital clues for James Watson and Francis Crick's double-stranded helical model. Her scientific career did not end when she left the DNA work at King's College, however. In 1953 Franklin move...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Isis 2008-06, Vol.99 (2), p.239-272
Main Authors: CREAGER, Angela N. H, MORGAN, Gregory J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biology
Biomedical Research - history
Crystallography, X-Ray
Cultural studies
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Diffraction
DNA
DNA, Viral - genetics
DNA, Viral - history
Franklin
Franklin, Rosalind
Franklin, Rosalind Elsie (1920-58)
History
History of medicine
History of science
History of science and technology
History, 20th Century
Humans
Life sciences
Medical research
Microbiology
bacteriology
virology
Microbiology
parasitology
Molecular Biology - history
Nucleic Acid Conformation
Personal profiles
Science and technology
Scientific research
Scientists
Technological change
Tobacco
Tobacco Mosaic Virus - genetics
United States
Viruses
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Rosalind Franklin is best known for her informative X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA that provided vital clues for James Watson and Francis Crick's double-stranded helical model. Her scientific career did not end when she left the DNA work at King's College, however. In 1953 Franklin moved to J. D. Bernal's crystallography laboratory at Birkbeck College, where she shifted her focus to the three-dimensional structure of viruses, obtaining diffraction patterns of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) of unprecedented detail and clarity. During the next five years, while making significant headway on the structural determination of TMV, Franklin maintained an active correspondence with both Watson and Crick, who were also studying aspects of virus structure. Developments in TMV research during the 1950s illustrate the connections in the emerging field of molecular biology between structural studies of nucleic acids and of proteins and viruses. They also reveal how the protagonists of the "race for the double helix" continued to interact personally and professionally during the years when Watson and Crick's model for the double-helical structure of DNA was debated and confirmed.
ISSN:0021-1753
1545-6994
DOI:10.1086/588626