In April of 1953, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins identified the substance of life - the structure of DNA. They later shared a Nobel Prize. Their discovery depended heavily on the work of a woman, chemist Rosalind Franklin, whose research was used without her knowledge or permission. Watson's memoir of the discovery dismisses Franklin as frumpy, hostile and unimaginative. A later work by a friend casts Franklin as a feminist icon, cheated of recognition.
It was Franklin's photograph of the DNA molecule that sparked a scientific revolution. Wilkins showed Watson the photo, Watson said, "My jaw fell open and my pulse began to race." The photo showed, for the first time, the essential structure of DNA - the double-helix shape, which also indicated its method of replication.

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin's X-ray photo of DNA

Crick and Watson

It was Franklin's photographic skills that made the discovery possible. She did not know the other men were using her research upon which to base the article that appeared in the journal Nature. Watson used her pictures to determine that DNA spirals into a double helix. She was not included in the publication that reported the structure of DNA. She didn't complain either. This may be thanks to her upbringing. Franklin didn't do anything that would invite criticism (this was) bred into her. She wouldn't share in the Nobel Prize either. Franklin was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1956 at age 37, and died two years later.

P. S. Universty in Chicago, USA named after Madame Rosalind Franklin