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ROSALIND FRANKLIN: The Woman Scientist of DNA (a) Include a brief biographical sketch of the individual. Rosalind Franklin, a woman of great scientific creativity, the so-called Woman Scientist of DNA was born on July 25, 1920. Her parents Muriel Way Franklin and merchant banker Ellis Franklin, belonged to well-respected Jewish families. Her family often conversed about a lot of things and there were family discussions and debates that honed Franklins logical mind such that Rosalind learned to argue and be assertive about a lot of issues.
At an early age, she loved physics and chemistry. Her schooling at St, Pauls Girls School in London plus her Bachelors degree in natural sciences with the specialization in physical chemistry made her more astute in the sciences. After she had graduated from college, she began her research on crystalline materials in support of an important wartime project. (b) Describe the Rosalind Franklin's significant accomplishments. This section must explain the scientist's work in terms that are understandable to an audience with a high school education. The use of coal in gas masks during World War II was prevalent and Franklin began her work by investigating on the reason why some kinds of coal are more impervious than other kinds to gas and water.
Her significant contributions to this earned her a degree in PhD degree from Cambridge in 1945. Her contributions were most valuable and she was invited to several scientific gatherings to share her findings as an expert on holes in coal. She had the opportunity to be invited by J Meeting to work in his laboratory in Paris. Her presence at the laboratory in Paris inspired her to go into the X-ray crystallography which made experiments on distorted carbon crystals. She was an extraordinary kind of scientist and was often described by colleagues as happy, beautiful, successful and valued by colleagues.
She was also wont to speak out her mind and was assertive when needed. During that time, this was an unwelcome trait for a female scientist. She also made a superb and valuable scientific career at Birkbeck College, and even contributed to the understanding of the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). The account of The Double Helix revealed her role in this and showed her accomplishment which had to be restored given the hostilities she suffered from some of her colleagues. (Rosalind Franklin and the Double Helix). (c) Explain what makes this person creative. In other words, explain why the scientist's work was unique and different. Explain how it changed the particular domain for all those that came after.
It was Franklins unpublished measurements of the crucial distances in the DNA molecule which was provided to her by an associate named Wilkins which spurred the building of the model of DNA. This fact was only discovered then years after the award of the Nobel Prize was given to her colleagues Watson and Crick. Both did not acknowledge Franklins contribution for making their discovery possible. Even until today, Watson assets that even if Rosalind was a gifted experimentalist, she could not have interpreted all the DNA data by herself. But her biographers which is led by Lynne Alpine, Professor at California State University says that there should have been a gesture that would have attributed some recognition to what Franklin did because it was Franklins data which Watson and Crick used such that it would have been most appropriate that the title, Watson, Crick and Franklin Structure of DNA an apt title to this discovery. (Rosalind Franklin: The Woman Scientist of DNA). Franklin is a very creative person because her achievements were continuously done even before and after her DNA work.
Even before her work in the DNA, she published ground-breaking work in molecular structures of various and some works in X-ray crystallography. She was so prolific and creative that even at the age of 24, she had several publications in prestigious journals. She was in complete control of the experiments she was doing. (Cox). A scientist colleague wrote that Franklin was a scientist with a penchant for clarity and perfection in her work. She had X-ray photographs which are among the most beautiful of any substance ever taken. This was the photograph of the X-ray diffraction of the B-DNA and the crystalline parameters which she had incessantly worked on and calculated which were used by Watson and Crick that made the significant basis in giving solution to the DNA structure. (d) Explain what anyone can learn about creative problem solving by studying the life and work of Rosalind Franklin.
People glean the creative way with which Franklin solved her problems. In Watsons book, The Double Helix, he portrays Franklin as having a belligerent personality and that he and Crick had to rescue DNA data from her volatile personality. Both Watson and Crick claimed that she was not capable of analyzing her own data. This was untrue according to other scientists who were knowledgeable about the kind of research that she was doing.
They argued about this inaccuracy and the way they painted a negative picture of her. Franklin was so successful in her success with X-ray crystallography that she was able to be a fellowship at Kings College in London in 1951. This time she experimented and studied proteins in solution and in dehydrated forms. She was able to design an apparatus that was eventually changed from protein solutions to biological fibers, specifically that of the DNA. Franklin had to exercise extreme care because there needs to be a control of humidity that was of utmost importance because the DNA fibers lengthen as they hydrate, and the motion would make the photographs unclear and blurred.
Franklin was honed in this kind of work because of her previous works with crystalline forms of coal. Franklin, however, was given a difficult time by the lab director, John Randall who informed Franklin that only she and a graduate student Ray Gosling will work on her project. She will not get any other support. She was therefore, under great stress in doing the project. (Rosalind Franklin: The Woman Scientist of DNA).
At Kings College she made intricate X-ray photos and calculations that gave a helical structure with the phosphate groups on the outside. She was able to discover the B-form of DNA and was even the first one to photograph this and even in the measurement of the space between the bases as well as the cylindrical repeat distance. It would have been fine-tuned more because she knew it was still wanting in more refinements but the data with the photograph has to be passed on to Watson without her knowledge. Thus, Franklins work was attributed to the two other scientists who did not even acknowledge her efforts in making that. They thought that Franklins delay was an inefficiency and a lack of knowledge on her part. The three papers therefore landed in print in the April 25 issue of Nature which merely confirmed the results made by Watson and Crick.
Yet, Franklin emerged a leader in the field of science, an idealist and a supreme experimentalist who loved to analyze the molecules of heredity. She had the passion for indisputable and provable facts. Even if she was not recognized during her time, she made invaluable contributions to science especially in the DNA area. WORKS CITED Cox, Laura. Rosalind Franklin and DNA. Retrieved Oct. 5, 2007 at: web Rosalind Franklin: The Woman Scientist of DNA.
Retrieved Oct. 5, 2007 at: web Rosalind Franklin and the Double Helix. California State University at Hayward. Retrieved Oct. 5, 2007 at: web
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Research essay sample on Rosalind Franklin The Woman Scientist Of Dna
