Rosalind Franklin and DNA Rosalind Franklin and DNA Rosalind Franklin and DNA is a biography of an English chemist Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) written by her American friend Anne Sayre in 1975. Franklin was a physical chemist who made pivotal research in the discovery of the structure of DNA, known as "the most important discovery" in biology. DNA itself had become "life's most famous molecule". While working at the King's College London in 1951, she discovered two types of DNA called A-DNA and B-DNA. Her X-ray images of DNA indicated helical structure. Her X-ray image of B-DNA (called Photo 51) taken in 1952 became the
Francis Crick of the importance of her experimental results in Watson and Crick's model building and theoretical analysis, Franklin should have had her name on the original Watson and Crick paper in "Nature". Franklin and Gosling submitted their own joint 'second' paper to "Nature" at the same time as Wilkins, Stokes, and Wilson submitted theirs (i.e. the 'third' paper on DNA). Watson's portrayal of Franklin in "The Double Helix" (written after Franklin's death when libel laws did not apply anymore) was negative and gave the appearance that she was Wilkins' assistant and was unable to interpret her own DNA data. The X-ray