The Franklin - Notting Hill & Ealing High School's Science Dept Newsletter - Issue 5 (Spring 2022)

Page 39

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Maurice Wilkins biography (whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/people/sum mary/Wilkins) Erwin Chargaff, Discovering the rules of complementary base pairing (dnalc.cshl.edu/view/15251-Discovering-the-rulesof-complementary-base-pairing-Erwin-Chargaff.h tml) National Medal of Science, Erwin Chargaff (nationalmedals.org/laureate/erwin-chargaff/) Doug Stewart, "Erwin Chargaff", Famous Scientists 9 August 2016 (famousscientists.org/erwin-chargaff/) Kara Rogers, ‘Friedrich Miescher, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 22 August 2021 (britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Miescher) ‘Friedrich Miescher’, DNA From the Beginning (dnaftb.org/15/bio.html) Erik Gregersen, ‘Phoebus Levene’, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2 September 2021 (britannica.com/biography/Phoebus-Levene)

‘Phoebus Levene’. DNA From the Beginning (dnaftb.org/15/bio-2.html)

Footnotes [1]

‘The Discovery of DNA’s Structure’ (pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/06/3/l_063_01.html) [2] See the end of the paper for picture of ‘Exposure 51’ [3] James Watson and Francis Crick, ‘Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid’, Nature, 25 April 1953 [4] Erwin Chargaff, ‘Heraclitean Fire’, 1 June 1978 [5] Awards Erwin Chargaff received included: Pasteur Medal in 1949, Carl Neuberg Medal in 1958, Charles Leopold Mayer Prize in 1963, Heineken Prize in 1964, Gregor Mendel Medal in 1974, and the National Medal of Science in 1975

Take 2. How did the work of other scientists help Crick and Watson to develop their theory for the structure of DNA? By Sia Patel Year 12 James Watson and Francis Crick reached a

Rosalind Franklin. After completing extensive

groundbreaking conclusion in 1953[1], when they

research on the chemistry of carbon and coal,

discovered that the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

which allowed great strides to be made in the

molecule,

hereditary

war effort, Franklin joined the Biophysical

information of cells, is in the shape of a

Laboratory of King's College, London as a

three-dimensional double helix. However, they

research fellow in 1951. Whilst at the College,

were not the only people who had been working

she completed extensive X-ray diffraction work

on this theory at the time, and were heavily

on DNA. This led to her discovering first the

influenced by other scientists of their era.

density of DNA as well as the fact that it could

Without these other scientists’ research, it is

exist in 2 forms. Franklin and PhD student

highly unlikely that Crick and Watson would

Raymond

have developed their pioneering hypothesis.

captured

One of the most influential scientists on Crick

photographs of all time: an image of one of the

and Watson’s theory was English chemist

forms of DNA that revealed its double helical

which

contains

the

Gosling one

of

(1953)[2] the

most

subsequently significant

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