Rosalind Franklin is most associated with the discovery of the structure of DNA. At 26, after she had her PhD, Franklin began working in x-ray diffraction - using x-rays to create images of crystallized solids. She pioneered the use of this method in analyzing complex, unorganized matter such as large biological molecules, and not just single crystals.
Franklin made marked advances in x-ray diffraction techniques with DNA. She adjusted her equipment to produce an extremely fine beam of x-rays. She extracted finer DNA fibers than ever before and arranged them in parallel bundles. And she studied the fibers' reactions to humid conditions. All of these allowed her to discover crucial keys to DNA's structure. Maurice Wilkins, her laboratory's second-in-command, shared her data, without her knowledge, with James Watson and Francis Crick, at Cambridge University, and they pulled ahead in the race, ultimately publishing the proposed structure of DNA in March, 1953.
It is clear that without an unauthorized peek at Franklin's unpublished data, Watson and Crick probably would neither have published their famous paper on the structure of DNA in 1953, nor won their Nobel Prizes in 1962. Franklin did not share the Nobel Prize; she died in 1958 at the age of 37.
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