Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind never married though there were speculations of affairs with Jacques Mering and her Donald Caspar.

In 1956, she was diagnosed with abdominal cancer and she underwent treatment. Despite her frail health, she continued to marshal her team members at Birkbeck and eventually succumbed to the illness two years later on April 16.

This pioneering scientist is the eponym for several educational institutes and astronomical structures, which include the asteroid ‘9241 Rosfranklin’ and the ‘Rosalind Franklin Laboratory’ in ‘Birkbeck University of London’.

Born to British Jews, Ellis Arthur Franklin and Muriel Frances Waley on July 25, 1920, Rosalind Franklin was their second child. Arthur was a teacher of physics, specializing in electro-magnetism, at an adult education institute.

She completed her studies from schools in West London, Sussex and Brook Green. A bright student, she earned distinctions in six subjects in her matriculation examinations in 1938 and even received a scholarship for higher studies.

Rosalind then enrolled at the ‘Newnham College’ of ‘Cambridge University’ for her higher studies. She completed her bachelor’s degree in 1941 under the tutelage of teachers like W. C. Price.

Rosalind embarked on her scientific career at the ‘University of Cambridge’ availing a research fellowship to work in the laboratory of chemist Ronald Norrish. But Ronald who was by then addicted to alcoholism turned out to be a poor mentor and eventually Franklin quit her job.

In 1942, she took up a position as the Assistant Research Officer in the office of ‘British Coal Utilisation Research Association’. It was during her tenure in BCURA that she catered to the air raid victims.

Her studies on porosity of coal led to the classification of coal and their optimum utilisation for developing war weaponry and her dissertation ‘The physical chemistry of solid organic colloids with special reference to coal’ was based on her research. The ‘Cambridge University’ presented her a doctoral degree in the year 1945.

After the war, she travelled to Paris and took up a position at the ‘Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l'Etat’ in the city, in 1947. The fifteen member research team was led by the French engineer Jacques Mering.

Under the tutelage of Mering, who himself was an x-ray crystallographer; she learnt the nuances of the technique and its application in study of crystals. She extended her studies on coals and used x-ray crystallography to decipher the changes in molecular structure when amorphous coal is converted to graphite.

Rosalind’s contribution in the field of x-ray crystallography is unparalleled; her studies on different forms of carbon and optimisation of coal were crucial in the manufacture of wartime devices like gas masks. She also made significant contribution in explaining the true structure of DNA and RNA.