The double helix structure of DNA, the molecule carrying hereditary information, was described in 1953, opening the molecular era of biology and medicine that underlies modern genetics, diagnostics and much of oncology and pharmacology. This atlas records what the historical record supports and is not medical advice.
Facts
Disputed
DiscovererJames Watson and Francis Crick published the double helix model in 1953 and shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Maurice Wilkins, but their model relied directly on unpublished X-ray diffraction data and images produced by Rosalind Franklin, whose contribution was not properly credited at the time and whose role is now recognized as central by historians of science. 4 Attribution is genuinely contested: Watson and Crick built the model and are the named Nobel laureates alongside Wilkins, but Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction work, especially Photograph 51, was essential evidence used without her knowledge or full credit, and she died in 1958 before any Nobel recognition was possible. Discovery Year Discovery Date Classification
Type/ClassificationBasic Science Knowledge 1 Learn More
Photograph 51
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
James Watson and Francis Crick published their model of the DNA double helix in Nature in April 1953, and the achievement earned them, together with Maurice Wilkins, the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. What their published paper acknowledged only briefly was how directly their model depended on data that was not theirs: unpublished X-ray diffraction images and measurements produced by Rosalind Franklin, a crystallographer working at King's College London, chief among them an image known as Photograph 51, which Wilkins showed Watson without Franklin's knowledge or permission.
Franklin's own analysis of her data had already narrowed in on the helical structure and several of its key dimensions before Watson and Crick built their model; historians of science who have since reconstructed the sequence of events generally agree that her contribution was substantive rather than merely confirmatory, and that the credit she received at the time, a brief footnote-level acknowledgment, did not reflect how much of the model rested on her work.
A Nobel That Came Too Late to Share
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Rosalind Franklin died in 1958, of ovarian cancer, at thirty-seven years old, four years before the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for the discovery her own X-ray data had helped make possible. The Nobel Foundation's own rules do not allow posthumous awards, so her death alone would have closed the question of whether she might have shared the 1962 prize with Watson, Crick and Wilkins, independent of any argument about how the credit should have been divided while she was alive.
The dispute over how fairly Franklin was credited during her lifetime is not the same question as whether she would have won a Nobel Prize had she lived, and the two are often run together in popular retellings. What is well documented is narrower and, in a way, more damning: her unpublished data reached Watson and Crick without her knowledge, and the paper that used it credited her role as supporting evidence for a model that had, by the historical record, already substantially been hers to make.
FAQs
Why isn't Rosalind Franklin listed as a discoverer of the structure of DNA?
Franklin's X-ray diffraction data, including Photograph 51, was shown to Watson without her knowledge and used to build the model; she died in 1958, four years before the 1962 Nobel Prize went to Watson, Crick and Wilkins, and a Nobel cannot be awarded posthumously.
Attribution is genuinely contested: Watson and Crick built the model and are the named Nobel laureates alongside Wilkins, but Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction work, especially Photograph 51, was essential evidence used without her knowledge or full credit, and she died in 1958 before any Nobel recognition was possible. Franklin's own X-ray diffraction data and measurements were shown to Watson without her knowledge or permission and were directly used to build the Watson-Crick model; her own analysis had already narrowed toward the helical structure and several of its key dimensions before their model was built. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went in 1962 to Watson, Crick and Wilkins alone, and cannot be awarded posthumously, so her 1958 death foreclosed any possibility of her sharing it regardless of how her contemporaneous credit is judged; historians of science who have reconstructed the sequence of events generally hold that her role was substantive rather than merely confirmatory and was not reflected in the credit she received at the time.
Connections
Discovered By
Source NobelPrize.org prize summary: Crick, Watson and Wilkins, nucleic acid structure, awarded 1962
Held Differently
Maurice Wilkins, Healers Source NobelPrize.org prize summary: Crick, Watson and Wilkins, nucleic acid structure, awarded 1962
Rosalind Franklin, Healers Her X-ray diffraction work was central to the structure (Franklin and Gosling, Nature 171, 740, 25 April 1953) but the 1962 Nobel Prize did not name her
Long-Form Articles
In the Other Atlases
Same As
Also in Science Atlas: the same subject.
Sources
1. Nucleic acid double helix (Wikipedia)
Lead: kind of discovery
In molecular biology, the double helix is the structure formed by double-stranded molecules of nucleic acids such as DNA. The double-helical structure of a nucleic acid complex arises as a consequence of its secondary structure, and is a fundamental component in determining its tertiary structure.
Lead section
The double helix structure of DNA was first proposed by James Watson and Francis Crick, based on the work of Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling, Maurice Wilkins, and others.
View the Source2. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
Roy Porter, W. W. Norton and Company, 1997
3. Wikipedia
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia Foundation
4. A History of Medicine
Lois N. Magner, CRC Press
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (Wikipedia)
Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids article, lead sectionQuote, Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids article, lead section
It was published by Francis Crick and James D. Watson in the scientific journal Nature on pages 737-738 of its 171st volume (dated 25 April 1953).
NobelPrize.org prize summary: Crick, Watson and Wilkins, nucleic acid structure, awarded 1962
Discovered By: Francis Crick, Prize summary page, prize motivation naming Crick and Watson and Wilkins
for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material
Discovered By: Maurice Wilkins, Prize summary page, prize motivation naming Crick and Watson and Wilkins
for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material
View the SourceDissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Discoverer
Franklin's own X-ray diffraction data and measurements, including the image known as Photograph 51, were shown to Watson without her knowledge or permission and were directly used to build the Watson-Crick model; her own analysis had already narrowed toward the helical structure and several of its key dimensions before their model was built. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went in 1962 to Watson, Crick and Wilkins alone, and cannot be awarded posthumously, so her 1958 death foreclosed any possibility of her sharing it regardless of how her contemporaneous credit is judged; historians of science who have reconstructed the sequence of events generally hold that her role was substantive rather than merely confirmatory and was not reflected in the credit she received at the time.
A dissenting reading, from Historians of science crediting Rosalind FranklinLois N. Magner, A History of Medicine, CRC Press
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.