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Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Elise Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British chemist and x-ray crystallographer who studied coal in depth before discovering the double helix structure that DNA is famous for possessing today. Despite her miraculous discoveries, many people still credit Watson and Crick with the discovery of the double helix.

Biography
Early Life and Schooling Rosalind Franklin was born in the UK in 1920 to an affluent Jewish family. It was easy to see from when she was a young child that she knew what she want and that she was determined to get it. She displayed an aptitude for math and science at an early age, along with multiple languages, and was well supported by her family as she grew. Later in life, she went on to do a pre-university program before quitting a year early to get a head start on college. From there, she went to Cambridge to study physical chemistry. Due to World War II, her education was heavily impacted by foreign affairs. Many members of the chemistry and biology departments were pulled into the war so shortages on professors was unfortunately in plentiful supply. Nevertheless, she persisted and went on to receive her Bachelor's degree in 1941.

Research And Further Schooling After receiving her BA, Rosalind went on to win a generous scholarship for her to begin her research along with a research grant from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. She went to work researching and making progress towards a PhD. However, the war soon forced her hand and her choices became limited as she had to decide between going harder at work on her PhD or doing more traditional war-work and war-related research. It was an easy decision for her and she soon put her nose to the grindstone on her studies, going to work and research with the British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA) during the summer of 1942.

This was a rather lucky find for her, as it allowed Franklin to continue her studies while contributing to the war front. Every able bodied citizen was expected to work and help in some way so her studies began to focus on the chemical composition of coal. She specifically began to work on analyzing the chemical and molecular makeup of coal and charcoal both for use as fuel and in the priceless gas masks that were used en masse by soldiers as the Germans began to turn to chemical based weapons. However, her research began to produce as many questions as it was answering and she soon sought out and was awarded a grant by the BCURA to study the makeup of coal more in depth. Franklin began a series of her own original experiments analyzing coal and the density of it. Four years of research at the BCURA yielded her doctoral thesis after she received her PhD from Cambridge in 1945 and five scientific papers, with her listed as the sole author of three of them.

Scientific Advances
After the war ended, Franklin sought out new work in a drastically different field from what the BCURA offered. She soon met Marcel Mathieu at a carbon research conference in London during the fall of 1946 and he introduced her to Jacques Mering. Mering helped her learn and master the techniques of x-ray crystallography, later allowing her to examine complex substances.

Her most famous accomplishments were, of course, were in the field of DNA research. While Maurice Wilkins began to suspect that DNA had a helical form, it wasn't until Franklin assembled new x-ray equipment and a micro camera that true progress in visualizing DNA began. It took quite a bit of trial and error and she soon discovered that DNA had two separate forms, an A form and a B form, which had been the cause of much of the controversy over the shape of DNA until now.

James Watson and Francis Crick began trying to build a DNA structure based on the sketchy and less than stable information currently known about DNA around this time. However, Franklin immediately noted upon seeing their model that it would not hold up and stick together in actuality. They were spurned but continued working on a three helix model while Franklin went back to the realm of fresh discovery. Franklin's work eventually paid off when she obtained the first fully clear photo of DNA in its B form in May of 1952 labeled "51". This photo was, unknown to Franklin, passed along to Watson along with her unpublished research.

With the bulk of the hard work and research now done for them, it was easy for Watson and Crick to use Franklin's data to build their own model of DNA. Her early death at the age of 37 ensured that she was unable to fight for the credit she truly deserved.

Interesting Facts

 * -Rosalind was born into a Jewish family and aided Jews in their escape from Nazi Germany during World War 2
 * -Her work with x-rays that gave her the ability to do her groundbreaking research also likely played a role in the cancer developing that resulted in her death
 * -Despite her illness, she worked until the day she died
 * -In 1997, an asteroid was named after her
 * -Her uncle attacked Winston Churchill with a whip.
 * -She was involved i a trade union and even served on the London city council.
 * -She was able to speak four languages: English, French, Italian, and German
 * -Despite popular belief, Franklin's father and the rest of her family was fully supporting of her. Even if her father may have silently wished that she took a more traditional path in life at times