jan 1, 1952 - Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins' discovery of the structure of DNA

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Rosalind Franklin was a British chemist who had a Ph.D. from Cambridge and X-ray diffraction experience in Paris. Franklin used X-ray diffraction as her main tool - beaming X-rays through the molecule composed a shadow picture of the molecule's structure, by how the X-rays bounced off its component parts. Her creation of the famous Photo 51 demonstrated the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid: the molecule containing the genetic instructions for the development of all living organisms.
Maurice Wilkin, an Irish scientist also helped in the discovery of the structure of DNA. Wilkins moved with Randall to King's College in 1946, becoming his assistant director for the newly formed Biophysics Unit. It was here that Wilkins began his research into the development of X-ray crystallography for biological research. In 1950 Wilkins started focusing his research on DNA. This was to lay the foundation for determining the structure of DNA in 1953. Wilkins began studying nucleic acids and proteins via X-ray imaging. He was very successful in isolating single fibers of DNA and had already gathered some data about the nucleic acid structure, when Franklin was appointed as the leader of the research.

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