Franklin, Rosalind, 1920-1958

Rosalind Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was an English chemist whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. She earn a PhD from Cambridge in 1945. After joining King's College London in 1951 as a research associate, she discovered the key properties of DNA, which eventually facilitated the correct description of the double helix structure of DNA. Owing to disagreement with her director, John Randall, and her colleague Maurice Wilkins, she was compelled to move to Birkbeck College in 1953.

Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA while at King's College London, particularly Photo 51, taken by her student Raymond Gosling, which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix for which Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 37 in 1958. Her team member Aaron Klug continued her research, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982.