A Brief summary of the Life of Rosalind Franklin. Rosalind Franklin, a woman with a creative mind, raised much controversy about her discoveries with DNA. However, she never received the recognition that she deserved for such an extraordinary find. Eve

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                                                                                                                      Kevin Belcher

                                                                                                                      Research paper

                                                                                                                      2/20/2008

        

A Brief summary of the

Life of

Rosalind Franklin

(1920 - 1958)

(Blog:NPR)

Over the years many discoveries have been found by many scientists, but one of the most influential was discovery of the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (commonly known as DNA). Rosalind Franklin, a woman with a creative mind, raised much controversy about her discoveries with DNA. However, she never received the recognition that she deserved for such an extraordinary find. Even after her death, credit was given to others who benefited from her research and findings. Despite never receiving the accolades that she deserved, many haven’t forgotten about her or her greatest discovery.

        Rosalind was born in London on July 25, 1920. She was the second in a prominent Anglo-Jewish family (Profiles in Science). Rosalind and her family were known to be very accomplished individuals that achieved many goals. Rosalind attended Saint Paul’s school for girls, which is a preparatory career institute that focuses on strengthening talents. While attending the school, Rosalind demonstrated an early aptitude for math and science, and an easy facility for other languages such as French, Italian, and German (Profiles in Science). In 1938, Rosalind left Saint Paul’s to enroll at Newnham College of the University of Cambridge, which was one of two woman schools at Cambridge University (Cambridge University).  She decided to major in physical chemistry and by 1941; Rosalind received her BA in chemistry, and was awarded a scholarship for a further year of research and a research grant.  Rosalind decided to spend about a year in the laboratory of Ronald G. W. Norrish, who was a very well educated and respected in the field of photochemistry (Profiles in Science).

By 1942, During WWII Rosalind made up her mind to pursue her Ph.D., rather than doing traditional war work. Rosalind began work with the British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA) for a sum of four years. Her accomplishments yielded her with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Cambridge University in 1945(Profiles in Science). During this period she conducted numerous amounts of important research on the physical structure of coal and carbon. She worked to elucidate the micro-structures of various coal and carbons, and was the first to identify and measure the micro-structures (MSN Encarta). At age 26 and by the end of her work with this assignment Rosalind had published at least seventeen articles on the structures of coal and carbon (Gribble, Bobbi).

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In 1947, Rosalind traveled to Paris and spent roughly three to four years at the labratoire Central des Services Chimques de I’Etat. An associate by the name of Adrienne Weill helped her to get a position at that facility (Msn Encarta). While spending time in Paris, Rosalind began learning how to use x-ray diffraction (also known as x-ray crystallography is the science of determining the arrangement of atoms within a crystal from the manner in which a beam of x-rays is scattered from the electrons within the crystal) techniques to study the structure of carbon. She became very skilled at ...

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