Chemist · 1920 – 1958
Rosalind Franklin
Little-Known Facts
- She died of cancer at just 37, before the Nobel Prize was awarded for the DNA discovery she helped enable.
- Her later work on virus structure was highly influential in the emerging field of structural biology.
Myths & Misconceptions
Did Rosalind Franklin discover the structure of DNA alone?
No, but her X-ray images were essential evidence; Watson and Crick built their model using her data, and her contribution was long under-recognized.