The portions of fish and chips in the “Eagle” are substantial, but the traditional pub in the heart of Cambridge is known less for culinary specialties than for its illustrious guests. A light blue plaque on the façade indicates that it was here on February 28, 1953 that Francis Crick and James Watson first announced that they had unraveled “the mystery of life”. It is not known how many of the pub visitors immediately understood that DNA consists of a double helix, but at the latest after three specialist articles on the subject in the specialist magazine in April 1953 Nature came out, the scientific community realized how significant the discovery was. In 1962, Watson and Crick shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Maurice Wilkins.
On the badge on the “Eagle”, which was attached in 2003, “+ Franklin” and a heart with a thick, black pen were added later. The addition shows that the woman who made a decisive contribution to clarifying the molecular structure of DNA had still not found her rightful place in the history of science, even 50 years after what was probably the most important discovery in biomedicine. Rosalind Franklin should have long since be seen as a researcher who “as part of a quartet contributed equally to uncovering the double helix“, as the zoologist Matthew Cobb and the medical historian Nathaniel Comfort currently in Nature write.
Rosalind Franklin’s role in the discovery of the double helix is still not sufficiently recognized.
(Photo: Imago Images/Historical Views)
The researchers from Manchester and Baltimore, who decided their order of authorship by tossing a 50p commemorative coin for Rosalind Franklin, have uncovered evidence while researching biographies of Watson and Crick that now further underscores Franklin’s importance. After the chemist from London’s King’s College hardly appeared in the history of science at first, it has been emphasized for several years that Franklin was a brilliant researcher, a leader in the field of X-ray crystallography. Molecules are x-rayed, and the deflection allows conclusions to be drawn about the structure. However, according to previous interpretations, Franklin was apparently unable to recognize that the structure of the double helix was evident in her data. The corresponding X-ray image of DNA, “Photograph 51”, is considered the philosopher’s stone of molecular biology. According to the popular interpretation, “Franklin sat over the photograph for months, not realizing its meaning, until Watson got it right away,” according to Cobb and Comfort.
A journalist wanted to pay tribute to Franklin in 1953 – her text was not printed
This narrative, also shared by Watson years later, contained an “absurd assumption – namely that Franklin, the talented chemist, could not understand her own data,” according to the biographers. The previously overlooked letter from a colleague of Franklin’s to Crick from January 1953 shows that Franklin had recognized the explosive nature of her recordings. Also, Joan Bruce had the for the magazine time had been planning a contribution on the discovery of the double helix since the spring of 1953. In it, she described how “two teams” – Wilkins and Franklin, seeking evidence using X-ray diffraction, and Watson and Crick, working with calculations and cardboard-and-wire models – while independently pursuing the same goal, “did each other’s work confirmed or struggled to solve a common problem”. Watson and Crick tinkered “on the basis of the X-rays” with models from which the double helix emerged. Conversely, “Franklin checked the Cambridge models against their X-rays”.
According to Cobb and Comfort, this text also shows “Franklin in a position of strength, thoroughly on par with Wilkins, Watson and Crick”. Although sent time Photographers to scientists, but Bruce’s manuscript was never printed. The journalist was “apparently not strong in science” and Franklin may have conveyed to her that she still had a lot of work to do. The manuscript and Bruce’s point of view were not disseminated, the photos were used by James Watson in his 1968 bestseller “The Double Helix”, in which he distorted Franklin’s role.
Considering the papers that have emerged, Rosalind Franklin emerges as an equal member of a quartet that solved the mysteries of the double helix, made crucial experiments, asked critical questions, provided important data, and verified results. However, she struggled with the “everyday sexism of the time” and with reservations about women in science, as shown in the bestseller “A Question of Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus. She didn’t notice that her picture was gradually being corrected, nor did she notice the awards from her colleagues. Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 at the age of 37.