Editing Rosalind Franklin (section)

===Nobel Prize===
Franklin was never nominated for a Nobel Prize.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/dna_double_helix/readmore.html |title=The Discovery of the Molecular Structure of DNA – The Double Helix |website=The Nobel Prize |date=30 September 2003 |access-date=25 July 2013}}</ref><ref name="Ms">{{cite journal |last=Washington |first=Harriet A. |title=Don't Forget Rosalind Franklin |journal=[[Ms. (magazine)|Ms.]] |date=31 December 2012}}</ref> Her work was a crucial part in the discovery of DNA's structure, which, along with subsequent related work, led to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins being awarded a Nobel Prize in 1962.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Beard |first=Mary |year=2001 |title=Down among the Women (Nobel Laureates) |journal=[[The Kenyon Review]] |volume=23 |number=2 |pages=239–247 |publisher=Harvard University Press |jstor=4338226}}</ref> Franklin had died in 1958, and during her lifetime, the DNA structure was not considered to be fully proven. It took Wilkins and his colleagues about seven years to collect enough data to prove and refine the proposed DNA structure. Moreover, its biological significance, as proposed by Watson and Crick, was not established. General acceptance for the DNA double helix and its function did not start until late in the 1950s, leading to Nobel nominations in 1960, 1961, and 1962 for Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and in 1962 for Nobel Prize in Chemistry.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gann |first1=Alexander |last2=Witkowski |first2=Jan A. |title=DNA: Archives reveal Nobel nominations |journal=Nature |year=2013 |volume=496 |issue=7446 |page=434 |doi=10.1038/496434a |pmid=23619686 |bibcode=2013Natur.496..434G |doi-access=free}}</ref> The first breakthrough was from [[Matthew Meselson]] and [[Franklin Stahl]] in 1958, who experimentally showed the DNA replication of a bacterium, ''[[Escherichia coli]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Meselson |first1=Matthew |last2=Stahl |first2=Franklin W. |title=The replication of DNA in Escherichia coli |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |year=1958 |volume=44 |issue=7 |pages=671–682 |doi=10.1073/pnas.44.7.671 |pmid=16590258 |pmc=528642 |bibcode=1958PNAS...44..671M|doi-access=free }}</ref> In what is now known as the [[Meselson–Stahl experiment]], DNA was found to replicate into two double-stranded helices, with each helix having one of the original DNA strands. This [[DNA replication]] was firmly established by 1961 after further demonstration in other species,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nakada |first1=D |last2=Ryan |first2=FJ |title=Replication of deoxyribonucleic acid in non-dividing bacteria |journal=Nature |year=1961 |volume=189 |pages=398–399 |doi=10.1038/189398a0 |pmid=13727575 |issue=4762 |bibcode=1961Natur.189..398N|s2cid=4158551 }}</ref> and of the stepwise chemical reaction.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dounce |first1=AL |last2=Sarkar |first2=NK |last3=Kay |first3=ER |title=The possible role of DNA-ase I in DNA replication |journal=[[Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology]] |year=1961 |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=47–54 |pmid=13724093 |doi=10.1002/jcp.1030570107}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cavalleiri |first1=LF |last2=Rosenberg |first2=BH |title=The replication of DNA III. Changes in the number of strands in ''E. coli'' DNA during its replication cycle |journal=[[Biophysical Journal]] |year=1961 |volume=1 |issue=4 |pages=337–351 |pmid=13691706 |pmc=1366352 |doi=10.1016/S0006-3495(61)86893-8
|bibcode = 1961BpJ.....1..337C}}</ref> According to the 1961 Crick–Monod letter, this experimental proof, along with Wilkins having initiated the DNA diffraction work, were the reasons why Crick felt that Wilkins should be included in the DNA Nobel Prize.<ref name=zallen>{{cite journal |last1=Zallen |first1=Doris T. |title=Despite Franklin's work, Wilkins earned his Nobel |journal=Nature |year=2003 |volume=425 |issue=6953 |page=15 |doi=10.1038/425015b |pmid=12955113 |quote=(Crick's 31 December 1961 letter to Jacques Monod) However, the data which really helped us to obtain the structure was mainly obtained by Rosalind Franklin |bibcode=2003Natur.425...15Z |doi-access=free}}</ref>

In 1962 the Nobel Prize was subsequently awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins.<ref name="Profile"/><ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=10-nobel-snubs#5 |title=No Nobel for You: Top 10 Nobel Snubs |date=6 October 2008 |magazine=[[Scientific American]] |first=Erica |last=Westly}}</ref><ref>Nobel Prize (1962).</ref> Nobel rules now prohibit posthumous nominations (though this statute was not formally in effect until 1974) or splitting of Prizes more than three ways.<ref>{{cite web |title=Posthumous Nobel Prizes |url=http://www.nobelprize.org/faq/questions_in_category.php?id=4#11 |website=The Nobel Prize |access-date=17 August 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Hartocollis |first1=Anemona |title=By Selling Prize, a DNA Pioneer Seeks Redemption |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/nyregion/james-watson-puts-nobel-medal-on-auction-block-at-christies.html|access-date=13 February 2015 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=3 December 2014 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> The award was for their body of work on [[nucleic acids]] and not exclusively for the discovery of the structure of DNA.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/index.html |website=The Nobel Prize |access-date=13 February 2015}}</ref> By the time of the award Wilkins had been working on the structure of DNA for more than 10 years, and had done much to confirm the Watson–Crick model.<ref>Wilkins, p. 240.</ref> Crick had been working on the [[genetic code]] at Cambridge and Watson had worked on [[RNA]] for some years.<ref name="nobel">Wilkins, p. 243.</ref> Watson has suggested that ideally Wilkins and Franklin would have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.<ref name="nobelprize.org" /> Pauling, who received the Nobel Peace Prize that year, believed and earlier warned the Nobel Committee in 1960 that "it might well be premature to make an award of a Prize to Watson and Crick, because of existing uncertainty about the detailed structure of nucleic acid. I myself feel that it is likely that the general nature of the Watson-Crick structure is correct, but that there is doubt about details."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pauling|first=L.|date=15 March 1960|title=Letter from Linus Pauling to the Nobel Committee for Chemistry|url=http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/dna/corr/sci9.001.47-lp-nobelcommittee-19600315-transcript.html|access-date=17 September 2021|website=scarc.library.oregonstate.edu|publisher=Oregon State University Libraries}}</ref> He was partly right as an alternative of Watson-Crick base pairing, called the [[Hoogsteen base pairing]] that can form triple DNA strand, was discovered by [[Karst Hoogsteen]] in 1963.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Hoogsteen K|year=1963|title=The crystal and molecular structure of a hydrogen-bonded complex between 1-methylthymine and 9-methyladenine|journal=Acta Crystallographica|volume=16|issue=9|pages=907–916|doi=10.1107/S0365110X63002437|doi-access=free|bibcode=1963AcCry..16..907H }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Nikolova|first1=Evgenia N.|last2=Zhou|first2=Huiqing|last3=Gottardo|first3=Federico L.|last4=Alvey|first4=Heidi S.|last5=Kimsey|first5=Isaac J.|last6=Al-Hashimi|first6=Hashim M.|year=2013|title=A historical account of Hoogsteen base-pairs in duplex DNA|journal=Biopolymers|volume=99|issue=12|pages=955–968|doi=10.1002/bip.22334|pmc=3844552|pmid=23818176}}</ref>

Aaron Klug, Franklin's colleague and principal beneficiary in her will, was the sole winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1982, "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes".<ref>{{cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1982 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1982/index.html |website=The Nobel Prize |access-date=21 January 2015}}</ref> This work was exactly what Franklin had started and which she introduced to Klug, and it is highly plausible that, were she alive, Franklin would have shared the Nobel Prize.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Arnott |first1=S. |last2=Kibble |first2=T.W.B. |last3=Shallice |first3=T. |title=Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins. 15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004: Elected FRS 1959 |journal=[[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] |year=2006 |volume=52 |pages=455–478 |doi=10.1098/rsbm.2006.0031 |pmid=18551798|doi-access=free }}</ref>