On April 25, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick breakthrough paper In Nature, he proposed the double helix as the long, elusive structure of DNA, a discovery that earned a man a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine a decade later.
In the final paragraph of their paper, they admitted that they were “stimulated by unpublished experimental results and knowledge of the general nature of ideas” of two scientists from King’s College London, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. rice field.
Seventy years later, and thanks to Dr. Watson’s own best-selling book, The Double Helix, we have a less-than-flattering story. In that book, he not only wrote disparagingly of Dr. Franklin, whom he called Rosie, but also said that he and Dr. Crick had used her data without her knowledge.
“Of course, Rosie didn’t give us her data directly,” Dr. Watson wrote. “Furthermore, no one at King’s knew they were in our hands.”
This account became a metaphor for the badness of scientific behavior, led to a backlash against Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick, and turned Dr. Franklin into a feminist icon. It has also sparked a long-running debate among historians: Exactly what role did Dr. Franklin play in the discovery of the double helix?
of new opinion essaypublished in Nature on Tuesday, two scholars claim that what happened was “less malicious than widely assumed”. Yes, Matthew Cobb, a biographer of Dr. Crick, and Nathaniel Comfort, a historian of medicine at Johns Hopkins University and a biographer of Dr. Watson, found previously overlooked documents in Dr. Franklin’s archives.
These documents suggest that Dr. Franklin knew that Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick had access to her data and that she and Dr. Wilkins were working with them. “We should think of Rosalind Franklin not as a victim of her DNA, but as an equal contributor and collaborator to the DNA structure.” Dr. Comfort said.
Other experts said the new documents were interesting but didn’t fundamentally change the story. It has long been clear that Dr. Franklin played a key role in his discovery. David Osinski, a historian of medicine at New York University, said, “This is to add a little new evidence to the trail that leads directly to Franklin being a major participant.
And whatever Dr. Franklin knew about those who had access to her data, some historians say the new documents do not change the fact that her work was not fully recognized. .
Dr Jacalin Duffin, a hematologist and medical historian at Queen’s University, said: Canada.
looks double
In the early 1950s, Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick were collaborating at the University of Cambridge, England. I was trying to piece together the structure of DNA, mainly by building a molecular model.
At nearby King’s College London, Dr. Franklin and Dr. Wilkins were trying to solve the same puzzle experimentally using X-rays to create images of DNA. (They had a notoriously difficult relationship and mostly worked separately.)
In “Double Helix,” Dr. Watson suggested that his breakthrough came after Dr. Wilkins showed him one of Dr. Franklin’s images, known as Photo 51. ‘ writes Dr. Watson.
The book, published in 1968, ten years after Dr. Franklin died of ovarian cancer at the age of 37, became the popular story of this discovery. But the real story was more complicated.
December 1952, Dr. Crick’s supervisor, of Molecular biologist Max Perutz received a report of Dr. Franklin’s unpublished results during an official visit to King’s College. Dr. Perutz later passed this report on to his Dr. Crick and his Dr. Watson.
Dr. Cobb and Dr. Comfort found a letter suggesting that Dr. Franklin knew that her results had reached Cambridge.
In a letter written in January 1953, Pauline Cowan, a scientist at King’s College, invited Dr. Crick to an upcoming lecture by Dr. Franklin and his students. But Dr. Cowan said Dr. Franklin and her students said Dr. Perutz “may not think it’s worth coming because they already know more about it than they realize.” I am writing.
The letter “strongly suggests” that Dr. Franklin knew that Cambridge researchers had access to her data, and that she “doesn’t seem to mind,” Dr. Cobb said. .
Cobb and Comfort also found a draft of an unpublished Time article about the discovery of the double helix. In the draft, he characterized the research as not a competition, but the work of two teams working in parallel and occasionally consulting each other.
“It depicts the work on the double helix, the solution of the double helix, as the work of four equal contributors,” Dr. Comfort said.
trust issues
Elspeth Garman, a molecular biophysicist at the University of Oxford, agreed with Drs Comfort and Cobb’s conclusions, saying, “She is right to be a full participant.”
But it was “a little questionable” that Dr. Perutz shared Dr. Franklin’s unpublished data, she said. (In 1969 she told Dr. Perutz that although the report was not confidential, asked for permission Sharing “out of courtesy”. )
Still, other scientists and historians say they are perplexed by the arguments made in Nature’s essay. Helen Berman, a structural biologist at Rutgers University, called them “strange things.” Of Dr. Franklin, she said, “I’m not sure if she would have been treated so well if she had been an equal member.”
Dr. Franklin and Dr. Wilkins Published respectively unique results In the same issue of Nature containing the reports of Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick as part of a package of papers. But Dr. Berman wondered why scientists didn’t collaborate on one of his papers by the same author. Also, some scholars said they thought the new essay minimized misconduct by the Cambridge team.
Dr. Comfort said he and Dr. Cobb were not “trying to exonerate” Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick, who were “totally slow to acknowledge” Dr. Franklin’s contributions. Dr Cobb said the Cambridge scientists should have told Dr Franklin they were using her data. “They were brave,” he said. “They weren’t as open as they should be.” But it wasn’t “stealing,” he added.
According to historians, there is no evidence that Dr. Franklin was outraged by the event, she got along with a Cambridge duo in the last years of her short life. “As far as I know, it didn’t feel bad,” Dr. Osinski said.
Some scholars say things might have been different if Dr. Franklin had lived long enough to read the “double helix.” “The ‘double helix’ is terrifying,” Dr. Gurman said. “It gives a very biased view and gives her no credit for the bit they used from her.”
Nils Hansson, a historian of medicine at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, said Dr. Franklin’s early death also meant she missed out on the Nobel Prize, but the Nobel Conference has other ways of recognizing her contributions. Dr. Hanson said that neither Dr. Watson nor Dr. Crick mentioned her when they received the award, but Dr. Wilkins, who also won the award, did.
“She made a really wild deal,” said Dr. Howard Markell, a University of Michigan physician and medical historian and author of The Secret of Life, a book about the discovery of the double helix. “Everyone likes to get proper recognition for their work,” she said.
