Race for the Double Helix

The Watson-Crick model of DNA was a Nobel Prize winning structure. But what differed from this one to all of the other DNA structures that already existed? Well, Watson and Crick discovered the DNA was double-helical. Previously it was believed that DNA had a triple helix. Watson and Crick knew that the phosphates could not be located on the outside while the bases were on the inside.

The novel feature of their structure was that the two chains were held together by a purine and pyrimidine base. They are joined in pairs, a single base from one chain being hydrogen-bonded to a single base from the other chain, so that the two lie side by side with identical z-co-ordinates. Adenine (purine) is paired with thymine  (pyrimidine), and guanine (purine) is paired with cytosine (pyrimidine). Many times it will be written like: A-T, G-C.

As we already know, DNA consists of two strands, and each of those strands consist of a phosphate-sugar-phosphate backbone with bases (A, T, C or G) on the sugar molecules. The two strands run opposite of each other, with the bases pointing inwards and (as mentioned above) adenine is always paired with thymine, and guanine is always paired with cytosine. Therefore, if you know the sequence of one strand, then you know the sequence of the other strand. They are mirror images in reverse.

The Controversy behind the Discovery

Most of you may know that DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, structure was discovered by a team of scientists: James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, but there was also another key person who helped lead them to their discovery, Rosalind Franklin. So why was the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA awarded to only Watson, Crick and Williams and not Franklin? That is an excellent question.  I know it sounds like an awful argument to make, but it more than likely is due to the fact that she was a woman.

Franklin obviously was not credited for her help in the discovery of the DNA structure. If it weren’t for the picture she had taken, Watson and his teammates would never have made their discovery. She laid the basis for the quantitative study of the diffraction patterns, and after the formation of the Watson - Crick model she demonstrated that a double helix was consistent with the X-ray patterns of both the A and B forms of the molecule.

In 1951, Rosalind returned to England as a research associate in John Randall's laboratory at King's College, London. While working there she crossed paths with Maurice Wilkins. They both led separate research groups and had separate projects, although both were concerned with DNA. Randall gave Franklin responsibility for her DNA project, and when Wilkins returned from an absence he did not understand her role and treated her like a technical assistant. At the time, women did not receive the same rights as men. Only males were allowed in the university dining rooms, and after hours Franklin's colleagues went to men-only pubs.

The friction between Franklin and Wilkins grew, although they considered themselves friends. One day Wilkins showed James Watson a crystallographic portrait of DNA that Franklin had taken. She was very close to the discovery of the structure at this point, but close only comes in horse shoes and hand grenades. As soon as Watson saw the pictures the solution became apparent to him, and the results went into an article in Nature almost immediately. By the time Watson, Wilkins, and Crick received the Nobel Prize, Franklin had died from cancer.

In the last few years there has been a similar controversy and billion dollar law suit over a stolen idea, Facebook. Apparently Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea of this social networking site from the Winklevoss brothers while attending school at Harvard. Only in this case, the Winklevoss's received a settlement agreement onn February, 2008, for $20 million in cash and 1,253,326 Facebook shares. Not too shabby, huh?

In order to prevent another Franklin/Watson episode, I believe the scientific community should have to have strict rules on citing where and when you did your research and if you use any pictures you must get permission from the person who took the picture to conduct research on it or to use it as evidence.