About Me
I was born into an upper middle-class Jewish family, and was educated at a private school in London where I studied physics and chemistry from an early age, at an advanced level, especially so for a woman at that time. An excellent and dedicated student, undeterred by the social standard usually set for women, I earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1945 from Cambridge University.I then spent four years at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de L'Etat, in Paris. It was there that I learned the techniques of X-ray crystallography, the scientific method that would lead to the discovery of a lifetime.Early in my career, it was I who painstakingly conceived of and captured "Photograph 51" of the "B" form of DNA in 1952 while at King's College in London. It is this photograph, acquired through 100 hours of X-ray exposure from a machine I myself refined, that revealed the structure of DNA and the key to understanding how the blueprint of all life on earth is passed down from generation to generation. Never before had X-ray crystallography -- a technique of determining a molecule's three-dimensional structure by analyzing the X-ray diffraction patterns of crystals made up of the molecule in question -- been put to such deft or momentous use.The discovery of the structure of DNA was the single most important advance of modern biology. Decoding the structure of DNA put us on a path to understanding the human genome. Quite simply, it changed the future of healthcare forever. James Watson and Francis Crick, working at Cambridge University, used Photograph 51 as the basis for their famous model of DNA. (With little credit given to me, by the way. I'm just saying)I went on to perform exceptional research at Birkbeck College. I died in 1958 of ovarian cancer, at age 37, perhaps from radiation exposure from my work, or perhaps due to my own genetic makeup.
Watson and Crick went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1962 for their DNA model -- a model that was made possible by the magnificent work of me.
And now, the The Chicago Medical School honors my enduring legacy, by dedicating this University to my excellence. If you ever get the chance to visit Chicago, stop by Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science/The Chicago Medical School.Take that, Watson and Crick! (You little, bitches.)
