Rosalind Franklin was one of the most influential chemists of the 20th century. An expert in the use of X-rays, she unveiled one of Nature's best kept enigmas: the structure of DNA, the molecule that ensures that all of us, humans, animals, plants and other organisms, look like our progenitors.
Rosalind Franklin was born in London to a Jewish family who valued education and public service. She loved science, but when she was young, there weren't many woman scientists. Nevertheless she studied physics and chemistry at Cambridge University, and then moved to Paris to perfect her life's work in X-ray crystallography. She then moved back to King's College London, where she would work on finding the structure of DNA with Maurice Wilkins.
It was Rosalind's "photo 51" that was used by Wilkins to create the first ever double helix DNA model with Francis Crick. Though her male colleagues won a Nobel Prize taking credit for her work at the time, we now know just how important her discoveries were to figuring out what our DNA looks like and how it works!
There are several picture book biographies about Rosalind Franklin and she appears in many compilation volumes about women and STEM.
Otherwise maybe look for books about DNA. See
from DNA Day in April.
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