Case Study Of Rosalind Franklin

For the Carleton Prize for Biotechnology, I would like to nominate the brilliant scientist Rosalind Franklin. Her crystallographic work at King’s College, London was a crucial contribution to the double-helix model of DNA discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick (Gregory, 2002). Her contributions to the scientific community are still being quoted today and without the discovery of the structure of DNA, present day scientific projects such as The Genome project would not have been possible (“Rosalind Franklin”, n.d.; Alberts et. al, 2002). However, it is said that she is “in the shadows of science history” since this crucial contribution she made is largely unknown and she had passed away before the Nobel prizes were given to Watson, Crick and Wilkins for the discovery of the DNA molecule (Miko & LeJeune, 2009; Maddox, 2003). Additionally, women were marginalized during this time period and found it difficult to gain education, respect and their contributions were dismissed or sometimes misattributed (Mulcahy, 2015). Franklin is therefore known as “the silent …show more content…
She laid the groundwork for modern virology through her work on the tobacco virus and polio (Bagley, 2013). Additionally, her work on coal and graphite, is still being quoted today (“Rosalind Franklin”, n.d). Most importantly, Franklin perfected x-ray crystallography and produced the famous “photograph 51” that proved the helical structure of DNA (Maddox, 2003). To conclude this nomination, I believe that the Carleton prize for Biotechnology should go to the exceptional scientist Rosalind Franklin. She not only gave Watson and Crick the key to DNA structures and evidence to their research, but also did it in a time when women were marginalized in the scientific community. Her accomplishments were never recognized during her day, but it is high time that she receives an award she truly