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Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA

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I was initially drawn to this book (as will most other readers I imagine) by the controversy surrounding Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of the structure of the DNA helix. Instead, I was undeservingly rewarded with a fine biography of a character every bit as complex and fascinating as a heroine in a Henry James novel: a rich, head-strong English Jewish girl, blessed with a burning passion for science, talented but trapped in the chauvinistic world of post-war English science. She spent her life split between the sunny sophistication of France and the sobriety of England. Her professional life occurred through the Second World War, and the post-war period, providing a rich background for the biography.

On the DNA controversy, Brenda Fox gives the most compelling account that I have read of what actually happened: if anything, Franklin was a victim of the fractious atmosphere created by J.T. Randall, head of the department of Biophysics at King's college. By not clarifying the working relations between Wilkins, Franklin and their students, Randall deliberately created an ugly turf war. That Watson and Crick got to see her data was a result of confusion rather than espionage.

Yet, the question is often raised that Franklin was not capable of solving the structure on her own. To answer that question, one only has to follow her later career to find out that she was truly one of the great crystallographers. Her elucidation of the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus was a technical achievement easily rivalling that of DNA, and might have led to a Nobel-prize if not for her early death. Indeed, her junior collaborator on the mosaic virus, Aaron Klug, would go on to win a Nobel prize himself, citing Franklin as his greatest mentor in his Nobel-prize speech (a high honour amongst scientists). Brenda Fox unearths a voluminous amount of material, which shows that Franklin was careful rather than unimaginative, as some have claimed. In a more supportive atmosphere, Franklin would have solved the DNA structure herself. However, Watson and Crick built on so many of Franklin's results (that DNA was helical, that the phosphates are on the outside, that there are 2 forms of DNA) that the real scandal is that they lied in their paper about having come to the model through pure theory alone.

Brenda Fox paints a magnetic portrait of Franklin - a woman who was alternatively gregarious and witty, with a penchant for all things French (a very fine prejudice indeed), yet was also cold, hostile and aristocratically overbearing. Her relations with the men in her life were complex and dissected with sympathetic acumen by Brenda Fox. In short, I came away with the impression that Rosalind Franklin was someone I would have liked to have known. I can think of no greater praise for a biography than that.

p.s. just a little note to a previous reviewer: crystallography in proteins is alive and well: the 2003 Chemistry Nobel-prize went to Rod McKinnon for the crystal structure of the potassium channel, in 1997, it went to John Walker for the structure of ATP-synthase.

Brenda Maddox does a masterful job of laying out the life story of Rosalind Franklin, the supposed "forgotten lady of DNA". This biography is far superior to the personal vendetta waged against J D Watson on Franklin's behalf by Anne Sayre (see my comments on "Rosalind Franklin and DNA" by Anne Sayre).

Rosalind Franklin is the King's College scientist who obtained the x-ray photograph of the B form of DNA which was an important piece of information in the eventual description of a model of the structure of DNA that was described by J D Watson and FHC Crick in 1953, and for which they, along with Maurice Wilkins, won the Nobel Prize. Much has been written about whether Franklin was robbed of credit for her DNA contribution, whether she would have determined the structure by herself, and whether she would have shared in the Nobel. Whether these things are true or may have come to pass is difficult to say. Franklin died in 1958 and without her answers to some of these questions we are only left to speculate.

However Maddox leaves little speculation about who Rosalind Franklin was. This is a model biography of a true pioneer and an excellent role model for those seeking a career in the sciences. My own career was greatly influenced by Watson's personal account of the description of the model DNA structure he and Crick proposed. At that time (1971) I was more taken with the intuitive thinking displayed by the protagonists and their after hours antics than by the portrayal of "Rosy". In following years I have read Sayre and also Crick and others and have been somewhat bemused by the situation that surrounds Franklin and DNA, perhaps because it is almost all personal opinion and speculation. Maddox's picture is none of this. Her book is the description of a talented, strong-willed, opinioned female scientist and yes, a feminist. There is little doubt that Franklin made significant scientific contributions. There is also little doubt that she was emotionally immature and fragile. There is even less doubt that she died far, far, far too young but with great dignity and spirit. The first chapters on the pre-Rosalind history of the Franklin's is slow going but the reader is more than compensated by the final chapters that touchingly describe Franklin's last months. In her last few years we see a woman making her place in a man's world, and doing it very successfully. Her emotional life may even have been close to being fulfilled. But abdominal pains herald the beginning of repeated cancer treatments which culminate in her death before her work on viral structure was to be displayed in exhibition. Watson's book is fun, an easy read about how science is done (by some) but Rosalind's story is filled with overwhelming emotion about how a life was lived and cut short. She was robbed of the only real prize - life.

A story of an unmarried Jewish woman in a man's world of science. The biography of Rosalind Franklin opens the book on a well-to-do Jewish family in the UK, revealing some of the deep-seated pressures and motivations driving this remarkable experimentalist. As a Biochemist, I now appreciate the fact that there is more to the discovery of the double helix than you will read about in The Double Helix. Indeed, the discovery of the double helix may be a 50 year-old example paralleling today's insider trading. The discovery of the double helix is the story of how someone is presented with the unpublished data of Rosalind Franklin (the acknowledged key to the structure of DNA)and "sells" the product to the world without her permission or knowledge. Warning: this book may change your perspective. I could not put this book down.

This is a fine biography that both covers Franklin's life very well and provides a solid sketch of the world she lived in, without going into the endless detail that some "life and times" biographies do. The book provides a clear understanding of who Franklin was and how she acted, both good and bad. She was a brilliant scientist and a warm, caring friend to many; on the other side she was a perfectionist (it goes with the brilliance) and an intellectual snob. It's the task of biography to show us the whole person, and this book does that.

The book also provides a fascinating description of the world of postwar science in Britain. It was still the era of "small science" in which brilliant individuals made major discoveries while working in cramped, dirty conditions with minimal facilities and what now seem absurdly small budgets. Individual scientists still designed their own equipment (one of Franklin's early contributions was the design of an improved X-ray camera) and still spent endless days on pencil-and-paper mathematical computations unless they were lucky enough to get permission from the budget gods to hire a "computer" human to do the arithmetic for them.

By covering Franklin's career in detail, Maddox makes clear that her work on DNA was only part of her career, and probably not the most important part. When she died the arc of her career was still climbing. Had Franklin lived she would have been a likely candidate for a Nobel Prize based not on her role in DNA but on research done later by her own team of researchers under her own direction. Her death at age 37 cutting her career short was a loss to all human society.

Brenda Maddox writes a book that amalgamates her subject's technical performance with her human frailties. She presents Rosalind Franklin as technically gifted and thorough to a degree most mortals would not comprehend, with a personality that is simultaneously beautiful & hostile, fragile & robust, all in the one human being.

What is refreshing is Maddox' honesty in dealing with her subject, and the intense warmth she brings to her. The counterpoint of Rosalind's scientific brilliance on the one hand and her vulnerability on the other makes her an absorbing character. She inspires as being prosaic at one level, artless at another and exceptionally diligent and intelligent.

But in the end Brenda Maddox leaves another message - that Rosalind Franklin despite her strengths and weaknesses, was beautifully human. And this is the refreshing part.

I don't have the scientific background to adequately appreciate everything in this mesmerizing book. I recently had the privilege of meeting a scientist who once worked with Dr. Franklin, and this meeting sparked my interest in learning more about her. It isn't often that one has the opportunity to realize the complexity of personality, and interpersonal relationships, behind scientific discovery. I believe that if more students were encouraged to "get acqainted" with working scientists in a similar fashion, who knows what the next, great discovery might be?

Probably the most meticulously researched biography I have ever read. Maddox`s accounts of the personalities, not only of Rosalind, but of all the famed scientists she came into contact with,are breatktaking. And Rosalind,herself,comes across as human and humane besides having a brilliant mind.

After reading the book it is clear the scientific community is both collegial and cut throat. In Franklin's case, the lure of honor compels a fellow scientist to use Rosalind's research without giving her the credit she deserved in uncovering the structure of DNA. Maddox provides insight into the not always amicable inner workings of a research lab and the psychology of scientists.

As an elite, Jewish, female Francophile, Franklin was not an easy person to get along with, especially in the lab at King's College London under Dr. Randall. If she had a difficult personality though, she was anything but shy and certainly was not politically naive. She held her own in a male dominated environment and perhaps this is the reason she become known as the Dark Lady. Maddox does her best to give Franklin a balanced appraisal.

Scientists share information and materials through attendance at conferences and in social settings and keeping up with each other's work is expected. But, the use of Rosalind's unpublished material (the crucial photo 51 and experimental data) without her knowledge, to make a breakthrough discovery, is of questionable ethics.

The author presents some insight into the mentality of the scientist. She quotes Albert Einstein, "that a scientist makes science `the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way the peace and security which he cannot find in the whirlpool of personal experience.'"(32). To Rosalind "science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated."(61) Is this why she found it so difficult to explain her work to family and friends? They simply could not understand?

Maddox notes: "it can be argued that scientific discovery is not creativity in the sense that artistic composition is. `Science differs from other realms of human endeavor in that its substance does not derive from the activity of those who practice it'"(213) Therefore it is interesting when an eminent scientist is caught in the trap of his own beliefs and exposed. This occurred when Rosalind corrected the eminent British virologist Norman W. Price. She was right, and had the proof, but he would not accept it, even in the face of convincing evidence to the contrary.

This book tells the story of a woman scientist who I had never heard of. Her work on DNA is only a part of the book. She died of ovarian cancer in her late thirties. The book suggests that she might have married a fellow scientist, Don Caspar, had she not become ill. The science is accessible and held my interest. Maddox by no means paints her as a saint but presents both the positive and negative. It sounded like she may have been arrogant at times but she certainly had no picnic in making her way in science in the fifties. Very moving story.

Rosalind Franklin is the closest that 20th century science has to a mythical figure. She had already died before the great majority of people had heard of her, but she sprang into prominence in James Watson's famous book The Double Helix. Watson's portrayal of her was not a kind one, and readers were left with the impression of a second-rank scientist, competent enough as an experimentalist, perhaps, but barely able to understand her own results and far too possessive to allow better scientists to analyse them and make their fortunes with them. It is important to emphasize to non-scientists that an unwillingness to hand over hard-won data to anyone who asks is almost a universal characteristic -- not at all a special fault of Franklin's. Watson's portrayal of himself and his friends was not particularly flattering in his book either, but the fact that he came over as a bit of a rogue himself only tended to reinforce his unattractive portrayal of Franklin.

It was obvious even when The Double Helix appeared that the "Rosy Franklin" described there was a crude caricature, and various people, most notably Anne Sayre, have tried over the years to rehabilitate her. Their efforts have resulted in a picture almost equally caricatural: a brilliant young scientist, subject to discrimination -- as a Jewish woman -- in the masculine Christian atmosphere of King's College, unable to to get the support she needed, cheated of her data by unscrupulous superiors and competitors, denied her rightful Nobel Prize. Brenda Maddox, in this excellent biography, points out that "In ensuing decades, the myth of the wronged heroine has grown, nourished by the fact of Rosalind's early death. Rosalind Franklin has become the symbol of woman's lowly position in the pantheon of science." Now that Chicago has a Rosalind Franklin University, and even King's College has a Franklin-Wilkins Building, there is little danger that she will be forgotten.

Maddox has interviewed nearly all of the major players -- with the obvious and unavoidable exception of Franklin herself -- and has written a balanced account of the story behind the myth. Certainly, Franklin was brilliant, and given time she might well have arrived at the structure of DNA herself, but there is nothing to suggest that she herself thought she had been cheated of the discovery, and she could not have received the Nobel Prize for it, because she had already died by the time it was awarded, and it is never awarded posthumously. Moreover, in the years after the discovery she enjoyed good relations with both Watson and Francis Crick, though not with her former superior at King's, Maurice Wilkins.