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
Fiber diffraction eliminates fiber tilt, unwarps the detector image, and corrects the scattering intensity. The correct equation for the determination of β has been presented by Norbert Stribeck. Fiber diffraction data led to several important advances in the development of structural biology, e.g., the original models of the α-helix and the Watson-Crick model of double-stranded DNA. The animation shows the geometry of fiber diffraction. It is based on the notions proposed by Polanyi. Reference direction is the primary beam (label: X-ray). If the fiber is tilted away from the perpendicular direction by an angle β, as well the information about its molecular