Inspiring women in science, part V

Rosalind Franklin was born in England in 1920. She produced the X-ray diffraction images of DNA, and independently determined that DNA was helical and that the phosphate groups were on the outside. The figure above is from “Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate”, published in Nature, 1953; 171:740-741, in the same issue as the paper published by Watson and Crick. She later led work on the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus and the polio virus. She died in 1958 from ovarian cancer.

As an aside, this is pretty close to something I tell all potential students in my lab: science is a lifestyle choice more than a career. As evidence, I am posting this from the lab on a Sunday afternoon.