Rosalind Franklin: An Important Historical Figure

As hard as is it is today for women to succeed in the sciences, one must give kudos to those that came before us. These are the women that paved the way for today's generation of women scientists. One such woman is Rosalind Elsie Franklin, a chemist who had a great impact on the modern day field of genetics.

The discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid, more commonly known as DNA, has been the foundation for much scientific work. This fundamental discovery was credited to James Watson and Francis Crick. Many people believe that another person, Rosalind Franklin, also played a large role in the research. How much did she contribute to the discovery? Why is her name left unrecognized? This paper will discuss her part in the search and whether her name should appear next to Watson's and Crick's as the co-discoverer of DNA.

The fact that many people probably have not heard of Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Lise Meitner, Esther Lederberg, Chien-Shiung Wu or Rosalind Franklin, is not surprising. These women, among many other female scientists, have been robbed of their recognition due to sexism. Female scientists have a reputation of being ignored, in a sense that they did not receive enough, if not any, credit for their ideas and work. If you ask people who were responsible for the discovery of DNA, most people would answer Watson and Crick. However, there were some scientists that made key contributions, and are not properly acknowledged. Rosalind Franklin is seen as one of the most discredited researchers of all times. She had played an important role in the development of the model of the DNA molecule, but the other male scientists took all the credit, and, received the Nobel Prize for ‘their’ discovery.

1. What role did Rosalyn Franklin play in our understanding of DNA’s structure? She discovered the double-helix position of the DNA.

Franklin was nominated for Vice President in 1920. Eleanor was on Campobello Island when she received a telegram announcing Franklin had been nominated (Scharf, 1987). Eleanor immediately packed up to join Franklin (Scharf, 1987). Eleanor became the only woman among traveling politicians and newspapermen (Scharf, 1987). Eleanor learned much about political problems and processes while traveling with Franklin (Scharf, 1987).

“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated”; this seemingly simple statement is found in a letter written by Rosalind Franklin to her father. Over seventy years after this declaration was made, an abundance of people have proven its truth and unknowingly use this statement to influence their education and life. Although Rosalind Franklin underwent various trials throughout her life, generational research can attend that her persistence made her into the brilliant chemist that is still remembered today. Rosalind Franklin’s most recognized piece of work is her important contributions in understanding the structure of DNA, a remarkable discovery considering her unexpectedly short lifespan. When looking at the impact Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was the most interesting revolutionary of all time because he was an amazing inventor, writer, and he was an extraordinary man. Ben Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1706. He was the youngest son of Josiah and Abiah Franklin. He was one of seventeen children. He made many contributions to this world. One of the inventions he made was the rocking chair, which is still used to this day. Ben Franklin also invented a very important contribution used to this day, electricity. Did you know he almost killed himself twice while inventing electricity? The first way he tried to use electricity was to shock this paralyzed man and ended up shocking himself, almost killing himself but the charge was not powerful enough.

Rosalind Franklin helped develop the double-stranded helix structure of DNA, which she is rarely given credit for; while Jane Goodall extensively studied the behavior of apes. Both of these women have been audacious not only for doing great things for science, but also for pushing against the norm of only men being able to make discoveries. Being adventurous propels people into seeking new ideas and finding solutions, fixing thought to be unsolvable

4) Rosalind Franklin: Used x-ray diffractions to take pictures of the structure of DNA. The pictures alluded to DNA’s

I chose Rosalind Franklin as my topic because i know a little bit about her and i want to learn more about her. Also i think she would be a cool physicist to research about. Also she was a woman and it was the 1950’s so it was probably really hard and she probably got discouraged a lot. I wanna know how she got through it and what other challenges she faced.

Rosalind Franklin was born on July 25, 1920. In her early years, Rosalind’s father was a partner with Keyser’s bank, which is considered one of the family’s major businesses, and because of his average job, later on he will have low expectations for Rosalind. But Rosalind had other things in mind; at the age of 16, Rosalind had wanted to become a female scientist. Rather than be able to stay 1 more year at school, she left and continued onto college to begin her scientific career at Cambridge University. Not long after she arrived, WWII had begun and many of her instructors has been sucked into the war, luckily before, she has majored in physical chemistry, and soon Cambridge had become a place for refugees. During the war, she had been

I would love to have a conversation with Rosalind Franklin, an English chemist who discovered the double helix structure of DNA by using X-ray crystallography. However, Watson and Crick ended up getting the credit for the discovery because they were the first people that published on the double helix structure of DNA. I would want to talk to Rosalind Franklin because she made a huge contribution to the biology field, and although not many know of her, without her contribution, Watson and Crick would not have confirmed the double helix structure. Furthermore, DNA is my favorite molecule and I would love to talk to the person who discovered its structure, which is a large factor in the function of DNA. Rosalind Franklin is a huge inspiration

to her career in the future since it was the technique used to get a

Rosalind Franklin’s work on coal and charcoal was profoundly important in for the British in World War II. Immediately after graduating, Franklin went to work for the British Coal Utilization Research Association (Biography “Rosalind Franklin”). In her time there, Franklin wrote many papers on coal and charcoal about their structures and uses, eventually making such large contributions that she was awarded a Ph.D. in 1945 from Cambridge in honor of her great contributions to the war effort (Elkin). Part of her work that lead to this degree was her original experiments with coal and charcoal that looked further into the microscopic holes and tunnels running through the substances (U.S National Library of Medicine “The Rosalind Franklin Papers”).

Rosalind Franklin’s work on DNA was crucial in discovering the composition of the human body as a whole. Her x-ray photo revealed a double helix structure and she also discovered the A and B form of DNA. She worked through the adversity of being a female in a predominately male dominated realm and made remarkable findings that were eventually stolen. She adapted to a new lab with antiquated technology. Before this discovery, the structure of DNA was thought to be simple. Scientist, Watson and Crick, started with the wrong structure of DNA from a misinterpretation of notes from one of Franklin’s presentations. Unlike Watson and Crick, Rosalind Franklin could explain DNA and how it worked.