Crystallography

until she was truly physically unable to. In 1956, age 36, Franklin discovered that she had ovarian cancer (Biography “Rosalind Franklin”). How she came to develop this cancer is debated, whether is was due to the radiation of working with x-ray crystallography (Bagley) or possibly that it was the wicked irony of the gene being in her own DNA due to the fact that Ashkenazi Jews have a “hereditary predisposition to ovarian cancer” (Famous Scientists “Rosalind Franklin”). Beginning treatment,…

Wilkins, Watson, and Crick received the Nobel Prize, but in reality, was Rosalind Franklin’s data and photos of DNA that led to their discovery. They couldn’t have done it without her x-ray crystallography. Regardless of the discovery has had serious significance for modern medicine, Franklin 's contribution to it almost remained complicated. Since the publication of "The Dark Lady of DNA," readers have a much better understanding of who Rosalind…

For about three decades many scientists did not believe DNA contained genetic material because it was not seen as complex due to the fact not much was known about it yet, so many presumed proteins were the genetic material of life. It was not until scholars such as Frederick Griffith, Meselson-Stahl, James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Avery, McCarty, Erwin Chargaff and many more conducted experiments that would expose astonishing discovering that will lead to the…

productive life and short career after leaving DNA to others. Many, unlike Wilkins, liked working with her. The relationship between Wilkins and Franklin wasn’t easy. They never got along. He used to think that Franklin was there to do x-ray crystallography as his assistant. However, Franklin used to think that Wilkins was incapable of accepting a woman as an intellectual peer. Rosalind Franklin’s years at King’s college were indeed miserable, and gender was certainly one of the main reasons…

Ion channels are membrane proteins that selectively allow the permeation of ions into and out of cells (Fig.1a ###image messes with formatting). Some channels have evolved to also sense changes in the electrical potential across a membrane. A potential above a certain voltage will trigger the opening of these ion-conducting pores, releasing large stores of ions across the membrane. These voltage-gated ion channels allow for the generation of electrical stimuli (the firing of neurons via the…

and they became the laughing stock of the scientific community. Even though their model proved to be inaccurate, this still contributed to the discovery of DNA. Yet unwilling to give up, and with the help of Maurice Wilkins who provided X-ray crystallography taken by Rosalind Franklin, the pair announced on the morning of February 28th that they had found the secret of life! Unable to wait for the appropriate materials the two used cardboard and aluminum to model the double helix, as seen in the…

useful knowledge for the production of therapeutic recombinant insulin? A: The discovery of the amino acid sequence comprised of insulin by F. Sanger, which led to the later discovery of the structure of insulin through the utilization of X-ray crystallography. This provided useful knowledge in the production of therapeutic recombinant insulin pertaining to the chemically, physically, and immunologically aspects of…

John Stevens Henslow was one of the many men that influenced Charles Darwin. Henslow was an English clergyman, botanist, and geologist. He was born in Rochester, Kent on the 6 February 1796. John went on to study at Cambridge University, where he later met and befriended Darwin. He helped write the first volume of the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1822, after he investigated the geology in Anglesey, (an largest island off the north-west coast of Wales). Henslow was…

DNA was discovered through the collaboration of several scientists, most notably James Watson and Francis Crick. The two main methods used in the discovery of the structure of DNA was experimental, through X-ray crystallography, and theoretical, through building a model based upon the experimental data. Linus Pauling, James Watson, and Francis Crick were proponents of the theoretical model for the structure of DNA, while Erwin Chargaff, Maurice Wilkens, and Rosalind Franklin were champions of…

The first time I learned about structural biology was when I took Comprehensive Biochemistry I during my senior year at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. What was intriguing was how quickly I learned the concepts, and how easy it was for me to see conformational changes in three-dimensional space. I have always been a visual-oriented person, and until senior year of college I found that it was hard to find areas of research in biochemistry that utilize a person’s ability to analyze…