Maurice Wilkins

@Scientists, Timeline and Life ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was a New Zealand born British biophysicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine British University Of Birmingham Scientists Biophysicists Sagittarius Celebrities Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was a British (born in New Zealand) biophysicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for producing the first image of DNA fibers. His research constituted mainly of optical microscopy, separation of isotopes, x-ray diffraction, and phosphorescence. He helped in the improvement of radar screens used in the Second World War to detect enemy aircraft approaching the coast of England. He worked in the Manhattan project for some time but later changed over to biophysics. His specialization during the work at the Manhattan project was in spectroscopic separation of uranium isotopes. He soon lost interest in helping create weapons of mass destruction and instead changed over to doing research on biophysics. His discovery contributed to the double-helix model suggested by Crick and Watson in 1953. He and another scientist named Rosalind Franklin provided the secondary research to the double helix theory suggested by experiments carried out by the scientists James D. Watson and Francis Crick which became the basis of further research on the structure of DNA. He shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick as Franklin had died in 1958. He went on to do more work on genetics which included several experiments on RNA.

Personal Details

Birthday: December 15, 1916 Died on: October 5, 2004 Nationality: British Famous: University Of Birmingham, Scientists, Biophysicists Known as: Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins Universities: University Of Birmingham Notable Alumnis: University Of Birmingham Information Detail Birthday December 15, 1916 Died on October 5, 2004 Nationality British Famous University Of Birmingham, Scientists, Biophysicists Known as Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins Universities University Of Birmingham Notable Alumnis University Of Birmingham Birth Place Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand Gender Male Father Edgar Henry Wilkins Sun Sign Sagittarius Born in Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand Famous as Biophysicist Died at Age 87

Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand

Maurice Wilkins born at Unsplash Birth Place

He married his first wife Ruth who was an art student when he was in Berkeley. He had a son from this marriage. Unsplash Personal Life

He married Patricia Ann Chidgey in 1959 and had two daughters, Sarah and Emily, and two sons, George and William, from this marriage. Unsplash Personal Life

The King’s College London’ built the Franklin-Wilkins Building in honor of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. Unsplash Personal Life

Maurice Wilkins was born in Pongaroa, north Wairarapa in New Zealand on December 15, 1916. His father, Edgar Henry Wilkins, was a doctor in the ‘School Medical Service’. Unsplash Childhood & Early Life

He attended the ‘King Edward IV School’ in Birmingham at the age of six when his family moved to England from New Zealand. Unsplash Childhood & Early Life

After passing high school he enrolled at the St. John’s College under the University of Cambridge in 1935 from where he earned a degree in physics in 1938. Unsplash Childhood & Early Life

He joined the ‘University of Birmingham’ from where he got his PhD in 1940 by experimenting on the theory of phosphorescence. Unsplash Childhood & Early Life

He contributed to the war efforts in England during the Second World War by carrying out experiments on phosphorescence for improving radar screens. Unsplash Career

Later on he moved to the United States where he was recruited for the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb. Unsplash Career

After losing interest in producing weapons like atomic bombs, he moved to the ‘University of St. Andrews’ in Scotland in 1945 and joined as an Assistant Lecturer under John Randall who had been appointed to the Chair of the Physics department. He started working on the X-ray patterns produced by molecular structures. In his further experiments Wilkins was helped by John Randall who thought of using physics to help solve problems related to biology and wanted to combine both these disciplines to form an altogether new discipline called biophysics and carry out more experiments. Unsplash Career

In 1946 Wilkins had to move to the ‘King’s College, London’ along with Randall as ‘MRC’ told them to carry out their research in another university. They joined the ‘Biophysics Unit’ of the ‘Medical Research Council’, Randal as the ‘Wheatstone Professor of Physics’ and the head and of the entire department while Wilkins as Assistant Director. Unsplash Career

During the month of May or June, 1950, Wilkins and a graduate student, Raymond Gosling, obtained photographs of DNA with the help of X-ray diffraction methods. This photograph showed that the DNA molecule consisted of crystals arranged regularly on threads. Unsplash Career

Maurice Wilkins published his autobiography ‘The Third Man of the Double Helix’ in 2003. Unsplash Major Works

Information	Detail
Birthday	December 15, 1916
Died on	October 5, 2004
Nationality	British
Famous	University Of Birmingham, Scientists, Biophysicists
Known as	Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins
Universities	University Of Birmingham
Notable Alumnis	University Of Birmingham
Birth Place	Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand
Gender	Male
Father	Edgar Henry Wilkins
Sun Sign	Sagittarius
Born in	Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand
Famous as	Biophysicist
Died at Age	87

Maurice Wilkins

British

Dec 15, 1916

Biography

Personal Details

Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand