History of molecular biology Crick and Watson built physical models using metal rods and balls, in which they incorporated the known chemical structures of the nucleotides, as well as the known position of the linkages joining one nucleotide to the next along the polymer. At King's College Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin examined X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA fibers. Of the three groups, only the London group was able to produce good quality diffraction patterns and thus produce sufficient quantitative data about the structure. In 1948 Pauling discovered that many proteins included helical (see alpha helix) shapes. Pauling had deduced this structure from X-ray
Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid autobiographical account of the discovery of the double-helical, molecular structure of DNA called "The Double Helix", which was not publicly accepted either by Crick or Wilkins. Furthermore, Erwin Chargaff also printed a rather "unsympathetic review" of Watson's book in the March 29, 1968 issue of "Science". In the book, Watson stated among other things that he and Crick had access to some of Franklin's data from a source that she was not aware of, and also that he had seen—without her permission—the B-DNA X-ray diffraction pattern obtained by Franklin and Gosling in May 1952 at King's in London. In particular,