Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely recognised posthumously, for which she has been variously referred to as the "wronged heroine", the "dark lady of DNA", the "forgotten heroine", a "feminist icon", and the "Sylvia Plath of molecular biology".Franklin graduated in 1941 with a degree in natural sciences from Newnham College, Cambridge, after which she enrolled for a PhD in physical chemistry under Ronald George Wreyford Norrish, the 1920 Chair of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Disappointed by Norrish’s lack of enthusiasm, she took up a research position under the British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA) in 1942. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Rosalind Franklin has received more than 3,539,110 page views. Her biography is available in 79 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 72 in 2019). Rosalind Franklin is the 17th most popular biologist (up from 18th in 2019), the 158th most popular biography from United Kingdom (up from 175th in 2019) and the 4th most popular British Biologist.

Rosalind Franklin discovered the double helix structure of DNA.