Maurice Wilkins

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins

(born Dec. 15, 1916, Pongaroa, N.Z. — died Oct. 6, 2004, London, Eng.) New Zealand-born British biophysicist. Educated in Birmingham and Cambridge, he participated in the Manhattan Project, working on the separation of uranium isotopes for use in the atomic bomb. On his return to Britain, he began a series of investigations that led ultimately to his studies of DNA. His X-ray diffraction studies of DNA proved crucial to the determination of DNA's molecular structure by James D. Watson and Francis Crick, for which the three were awarded a 1962 Nobel Prize. He later applied X-ray diffraction techniques to the study of RNA. See also Rosalind Franklin.

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Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins

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New Zealand–British biophysicist (1916–2004)

Wilkins was born at Pongaroa in New Zealand. After graduating in physics from Cambridge University in England in 1938, he joined John Randall at Birmingham University to work on the improvement of radar screens. He received his PhD in 1940 for an electron-trap theory of phosphorescence and soon after went to the University of California, Berkeley, as one of the British team assigned to the Manhattan project and development of the atomic bomb. The results and implications of this work caused him to turn away from nuclear physics and in 1945 he began a career in biophysics, firstly at St. Andrews University, Scotland, and from 1946 at the Biophysics Research Unit, King's College, London.

The same year that Wilkins joined King's College, scientists at the Rockefeller Institute announced that genes consist of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Wilkins began studying DNA molecules by optical measurements and chanced to observe that the DNA fibers would be ideal material for x-ray diffraction studies. The diffraction patterns showed the DNA molecule to be very regular and have a double-helical structure. The contributions of Wilkins's colleague, Rosalind Franklin, were especially important in showing that the phosphate groups are located on the outside of the helix, so disproving Linus Pauling's theory of DNA structure.

Wilkins passed on his data to James Watson and Francis Crick in Cambridge who used it to help construct their famous molecular model of DNA. For their work in elucidating the structure of the hereditary material, Wilkins, Watson, and Crick were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.

Wilkins went on to apply his techniques to finding the structure of ribonucleic acid (RNA). From 1955 he was deputy director of the Biophysics Research Unit and from 1963 he was professor at King's College, firstly of molecular biology and from 1970 of biophysics. He retired in 1981.

Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins

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Although Maurice Wilkins (born 1916) is best known for his role in discovering the "double helix" structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecules - the molecules carrying the genetic information from which all life is formed - he has worked to encourage scientists, lawyers, medical people, and the public to think deeply about the possible cultural, social, and philosophical effects of scientific discoveries.

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was born on December 15, 1916, in Pongaroa, New Zealand. His parents were Irish, and his father, Edgar Henry Wilkins, was a doctor. When Wilkins was six-yearsold, he moved to England to attend King Edward's School in Birmingham. He also attended St. John's College, Cambridge, earning a degree in physics in 1938. In 1940, he received his Ph.D. in physics at Birmingham University, studying phosphorescence as a research assistant to the physicist John T. Randall.

During World War II he applied his knowledge to such problems as the improvement of cathode-ray screens for radar. He then worked with physicist M.L.E. Oliphant on the separation of uranium isotopes for use in atomic bombs, which led to Wilkins' involvement in the Manhattan Project in Berkeley, California, where the hydrogen bomb was invented. "Partly on account of the bomb," he said in the Saturday Review, "I lost some interest in physics."

His moral crisis eventually led him to the study of biology. He has credited Erwin Schrodinger's book What is Life with sparking his interest in a highly complex molecular structure that could control living processes. His former teachers Randall and Oliphant believed strongly that the field of physics had much to offer biology, and advised him to join a biophysics project begun by Randall at his alma mater, St. John's College, in 1945. In 1946, the project moved to King's College, London, where Wilkins joined the newly formed Medical Research Council Biophysics Research Unit.

While there, he studied the genetic effects of ultrasonics and worked on developing ultraviolet microscopes to study nucleic acids in cells. Although the existence of these acids in cellular nuclei had been acknowledged decades before, recently one of the acids-deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-had been recognized as a transmitter of physical characteristics from one generation to the next. Determining the composition of DNA was made more challenging because it varied greatly depending on the type of cell in which it appeared. As Wilkins studied the variations, he realized that any biologist could examine the cells as well as he could. He felt he could contribute better as a physicist by studying DNA in isolation, outside the cell.

Discovering the Double Helix

Using a technique from the field of physics known as the analysis of diachroism patterns, Wilkins placed the DNA specimen under the microscope and then subjected it to two colors of light simultaneously. One color was transmitted directly onto the molecule; the other was reflected. The contrast was intended to reveal the structure of the specimen. However, as Wilkins observed the molecule through the microscope, he observed that each time he lifted the glass rod used to orient the molecule, a small fiber hung from the tip. Wilkins determined that the uniformity of the fibers suggested that the DNA molecules were arranged in a regular pattern. What he could not determine was the pattern.

In what has been called a "moment of truth," Wilkins realized that although the pattern could not be seen in the microscope, the fiber could be studied by X-ray diffraction analysis, in which X-rays are bounced off the object and onto film, leaving a record of the object's shape. With the help of Raymond Gosling and Rosalind Franklin, Wilkins obtained the first evidence of DNA's spiral shape. After studying the patterns from several species of DNA, he could see that in each species the pattern was identical: two long strands coiled around each other in a shape called a double helix.

It was already known that the two strands were made of alternating units of sugar and phosphate, but Wilkins' model did not take into account the other chemicals known to be present in DNA: two large submolecules called adenine and guanine, and two small ones called thymine and cytosine. These four chemicals appeared in DNA in a seemingly random pattern. If the DNA molecule was as regular as Wilkins' model suggested, the irregular presence of these chemicals could not be explained.

The contribution of two biologists, James Watson and Francis Crick, solved the puzzle. They reasoned that the double helix shape of DNA was similar to a spiral staircase, with the chemicals serving as steps on the spiral. When a unit of adenine appeared on one spiral, a unit of thymine appeared on the other; similarly a guanine was linked to a cytosine. Because each step in the staircase consisted of one large and one small unit, all the steps took up the same amount of space. No matter what their arrangement, the regular shape of the double helix would not change.

Nobel Prize Leads to Opportunities and Controversy

As Science magazine reported in 1962, this discovery had far-reaching consequences. Now that the structure of DNA was understood, scientists could understand the process of genetic replication, or the method by which the genes of the parent are passed down to its child. "Until about 1950, biochemists had … tried to imagine mechanisms by which protein molecules could make replicas of themselves…. The double helix of DNA, on the other hand, could be pictured as unwinding into two single chains, each complementary to the other. As unwinding proceeded, each could serve as a template for the replication of another chain, complementary to itself, thereby reproducing both the original chain components of the double helix." With this information, geneticists would be able to make maps of genetic codes, enabling the study of hereditary traits and diseases.

For this achievement, Wilkins, along with Watson and Crick, received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology. They had also been recognized in 1960 by the American Public Health Association with the Albert Lasker Award, and Wilkins was made Companion of the British Empire. Wilkins took his position as Nobel Laureate seriously. While he acknowledged that some of the benefits of winning the prize included an "increase in salary and professional status," he told The American Biology Teacher that it is "in Alfred Nobel's spirit to accept some responsibility" for larger social issues, outside of his main field of expertise. "Some Laureates feel it's wrong to speak on other topics," he said, adding that this may be "a weak excuse to get out of responsibility."

In addition to his work on ribonucleic acid (RNA), which was discovered to act as a messenger, carrying the genetic code from the nuclear DNA, Wilkins took the opportunities created by the Nobel Prize to speak on such topics as "Science and the World" and "Science and Religion." He joined the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science and became president of that organization in 1969. In 1973 he joined with over 100 other Nobel Laureates to protest the Soviet Union's restrictions on scientist Andrei Sakharov and author Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

In 1975 he participated in a meeting of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, a group formed by American socialists with the aim of advancing their ideas within the existing Democratic Party. While Wilkins did not profess to be a socialist, he joined in the statement of six other Nobel Laureates, saying that "the exploration of alternatives to the prevailing Western economic systems must be placed on the agenda at once." In their greeting to the Organizing Committee, the Laureates stated, "Though we have different attitudes as to what this will mean, the process of discussion and political mobilization must begin now." Following his interests in famine and nuclear disarmament, he became a member of Food and Disarmament International in 1984.

Wilkins also found himself embroiled in controversy over the story of his discovery of the double helix with Watson and Crick. When Watson attempted to publish his book The Double Helix, both Crick and Wilkins protested several passages. The book took a very personal approach to the story, describing Crick as egocentric and Wilkins as distracted by his assistant Rosalind Franklin. Although some changes were made, they continued to oppose its publication, and Harvard University Press pulled its support for the book and refused to publish it. Critics complained that the press was "less interested in diversity of viewpoint than bland tranquillity," according to The New York Times. In 1987, Wilkins was still critical of his old partners: "They think everything about life and human beings can be explained in terms of atoms and molecules."

Wilkins has remained interested in the implications of his earlier work, especially the possibility of genetic manipulation: "This would be, as people say, playing God. And who would decide what genes you would alter and what the forms of the new genes ought to be?" His concern over the ethical problems raised by genetic research led him to create a course at King's College on the social impact of bioscience.

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins

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Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick, 1916-2004, British biophysicist, b. New Zealand, Ph.D. Univ. of Birmingham, 1940. He conducted research at the Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland, and at Kings College, the Univ. of London (from 1946 until his death). In Berkeley, Calif., he worked (1944) for the Manhattan Project on the separation of uranium isotopes for use in atomic bombs. Shortly thereafter, he discontinued his research in nuclear physics to concentrate on problems in molecular biology, particularly the structure of DNA (see nucleic acid). In the early 1950s Wilkins successfully extracted some fibers from a gel of DNA, and began photographing them using X-ray diffraction, but his best sample was passed to another researcher, Rosalind Franklin. On the basis of X-ray photographs prepared by her laboratory that appeared to show a helical molecular structure and from other scientific information, F. H. C. Crick and J. D. Watson built a model of the DNA molecule and explained its function. For their work the three men shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Bibliography

See his autobiography (2003).

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Maurice Wilkins

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Maurice Wilkins
Maurice Wilkins
Born	15 December 1916(1916-12-15) Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand
Died	5 October 2004(2004-10-05) (aged 87) Blackheath, London, United Kingdom
Fields	Physics, Molecular biology
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley
Known for	X-ray diffraction, DNA
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1962)

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins CBE FRS (15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004)^[1] was a New Zealand-born English physicist and molecular biologist, and Nobel Laureate whose research contributed to the scientific understanding of phosphorescence, isotope separation, optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction, and to the development of radar. He is best known for his work at King's College London on the structure of DNA. In recognition of this work, he, Francis Crick and James Watson were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material."^[2]

Contents

1 Birth and early education
2 Academic career, 1936–1950
3 DNA
4 Personal life
5 Recognition
6 References
7 Books featuring Maurice Wilkins
8 External links

Birth and early education

Monument to Maurice Wilkins, Main Street, Pongaroa, New Zealand

Wilkins was born in Pongaroa, north Wairarapa, New Zealand where his father, Edgar Henry Wilkins was a medical doctor. His family had come from Dublin, where his paternal and maternal grandfathers were, respectively, Headmaster of Dublin High School and a Chief of Police. The Wilkins moved to Birmingham, England when Maurice was 6. Later, he attended Wylde Green College and then went to King Edward's School from 1929 to 1935.

Academic career, 1936–1950

Wilkins went up to St John's College, Cambridge in 1935. He studied physics, within the Natural Sciences Tripos, and received a B.A. Mark Oliphant who was one of Wilkin's tutors at St. John's had been appointed to the Chair of Physics at the University of Birmingham, and had appointed John Randall to his staff. Wilkins became a Ph.D. student of Randall. In 1945, they published three papers in the Proceedings of the Royal Society on phosphorescence and electron traps. Wilkins received his Ph.D. for this work.^{[citation needed]}

During World War II Wilkins developed improved radar screens at Birmingham, then worked on isotope separation at the Manhattan Project at the University of California, Berkeley during the years 1944–45.^[3]

Meanwhile, Randall had been appointed to the Chair of Physics at St. Andrews University. In 1945, he appointed Wilkins as Assistant Lecturer in his department. Randall was negotiating with the Medical Research Council (MRC) to set up a laboratory to apply the experimental methods of physics to problems of biology. The combination of these disciplines as biophysics was a novel idea. The MRC told Randall that this had to be done in another university. In 1946 Randall was appointed Wheatstone Professor of Physics, in charge of the entire Physics department at King's College, London, with the funding to set up a Biophysics Unit. He brought Wilkins with him, as Assistant Director of the unit. They appointed a team of scientists trained in both the physical and biological sciences. The "management philosophy" was to explore the use of many techniques in parallel, to find which looked promising, and then to focus on these. Wilkins, as the scientist with most diverse experience of physics and Assistant Director of the unit, had general oversight of the varied projects besides direct involvement in his personal research projects that included optical microscopy.^{[citation needed]}

King's College received funding to build completely new Physics and Engineering Departments where vaults beneath the Strand level College forecourt had been destroyed by bombs during the War. The Biophysics Unit, several more experimental physics groups and the theoretical group started to move in, during the early months of 1952. The laboratories were opened formally by Lord Cherwell on 27 June. Wilkins' article for Nature described both departments, consistent with his leadership role and prestige within the College at large.^[4]

DNA

By 1950, preliminary studies of proteins were progressing in the MRC unit. Randall's original plan for Rosalind Franklin was that she do X-ray diffraction studies on proteins. Wilkins' work on DNA changed that. By 1951, Randall had established a major effort to solve the structure of collagen and Wilkins and Franklin represented a parallel effort to determine the structure of DNA. In the meantime, Maurice Wilkins' friend Francis Crick had joined forces with James Watson under the supervision of Max Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge and under the overall direction of Lawrence Bragg.^{[citation needed]}

At King's College Wilkins pursued, among other things x-ray diffraction work on DNA that had been obtained from calf thymus by the Swiss scientist Rudolf Signer. The DNA from Signer's lab was much more intact than the DNA which had previously been isolated. Wilkins discovered that it was possible to produce thin threads from this concentrated DNA solution that contained highly ordered arrays of DNA suitable for the production of x-ray diffraction patterns.^[5] Using a carefully bundled group of these DNA threads and keeping them hydrated, Wilkins and a graduate student Raymond Gosling obtained x-ray photographs of DNA that showed that the long, thin DNA molecule in the sample from Signer had a regular, crystal-like structure in these threads. This initial x-ray diffraction work at Kings College was done in May or June 1950. It was one of the x-ray diffraction photographs taken in 1950, shown at a meeting in Naples a year later, that sparked James Watson’s interest in DNA.^{[citation needed]}

At that time Wilkins also introduced Francis Crick to the importance of DNA. Wilkins knew that proper experiments on the threads of purified DNA would require better x-ray equipment. Wilkins ordered a new x-ray tube and a new microcamera. Before the DNA sample from Signer was available, Gosling had been trying to make x-ray diffraction images of sperm. However, Franklin did not start using the new equipment until September 1951. By the summer of 1950 Randall had arranged for a three year research fellowship that would fund Rosalind Franklin in his laboratory. Franklin was delayed in finishing her work in Paris. Late in 1950, Randall wrote to Franklin to inform her that rather than work on protein, she should take advantage of Wilkins's preliminary work^{[citation needed]} and that she should do x-ray studies of DNA fibers made from Signer's samples of DNA. Early in 1951 Franklin finally arrived. Wilkins was away on holiday and missed an initial meeting at which Raymond Gosling stood in for him along with Alex Stokes, who, like Crick, would solve the basic mathematics that make possible a general theory of how helical structures diffract x-rays. No work had been done on DNA in the laboratory for several months; the new x-ray tube sat unused, waiting for Franklin. Franklin ended up with the DNA from Signer, Gosling became her PhD student, and she had the expectation that DNA x-ray diffraction work was her project. Wilkins returned to the laboratory expecting that Franklin would be his collaborator and that they would work together on the DNA project that he had started. Franklin felt that DNA was now her project and would not collaborate with Wilkins, who then pursued parallel studies.^{[citation needed]}

By November 1951 Wilkins had evidence that DNA in cells as well as purified DNA had a helical structure.^[6] Alex Stokes had solved the basic mathematics of helical diffraction theory and thought that Wilkins's x-ray diffraction data indicated a helical structure in DNA. Wilkins met with Watson and Crick and told them about his results. This information from Wilkins, along with additional information gained by Watson when he heard Franklin talk about her research during a King's College research meeting, stimulated Watson and Crick to create their first molecular model of DNA, a model with the phosphate backbones at the center. Upon viewing the model of the proposed structure, Franklin told Watson and Crick that it was wrong. Franklin knew from basic chemical principles the hydrophilic backbones should go on the outside of the molecule where they could interact with water. Crick tried to get Wilkins to continue with additional molecular modeling efforts, but Wilkins did not take this approach. During 1952, Franklin also refused to participate in molecular modeling efforts and continued to work on step-by-step detailed analysis of her x-ray diffraction data (Patterson synthesis). By the spring of 1952, Franklin had received permission from Randall to ask to transfer her fellowship so that she could leave King's College and work in John Bernal's laboratory at Birkbeck College, also in London. However, Franklin remained at King's College for another year.^{[citation needed]}

By early 1953, it was clear that Franklin would simply drop her DNA work at the end of her fellowship that summer, or even sooner due to illness. Linus Pauling had published a proposed but incorrect structure of DNA, making the same basic error that Watson and Crick had made a year earlier. Some of those working on DNA in the United Kingdom feared that Pauling would quickly solve the DNA structure once he recognized his error and put the backbones of the nucleotide chains on the outside of a model of DNA. After March 1952 Franklin concentrated on the x-ray data for the A-form of less hydrated DNA while Wilkins tried to work on the hydrated B-form. Wilkins was handicapped because Franklin had all of the good DNA. Wilkins got new DNA samples, but it was not as good as the original sample he had used in 1950 and which Franklin continued to use. Most of his new results were for biological samples like sperm cells, which seemed to also suggest a helical structure for DNA. In the middle of 1952 Wilkins had for a time abandoned further DNA work when Franklin reported to him that her results made her doubt the helical nature of the A-form. Wilkins feared that the data suggesting a helical structure might just be an artifact.^{[citation needed]}

In early 1953 Watson visited King's College and Wilkins showed him a high quality image of the B-form x-ray diffraction pattern, now identified as photograph 51, that Franklin had produced in March 1952. With the knowledge that Pauling was working on DNA and had submitted a model of DNA for publication, Watson and Crick mounted one more concentrated effort to deduce the structure of DNA. Through Max Perutz, his thesis supervisor, Crick gained access to a progress report from King's College that included useful information from Franklin about the features of DNA she had deduced from her x-ray diffraction data. Watson and Crick published their proposed DNA double helical structure in a paper in the journal Nature in April 1953. In this paper Watson and Crick acknowledged that they had been "stimulated by.... the unpublished results and ideas" of Wilkins and Franklin.^{[citation needed]}

The first Watson-Crick paper appeared in Nature on 25 April 1953. Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, where Watson and Crick worked, gave a talk at Guys Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953 which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the News Chronicle of London, on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life." The news reached readers of The New York Times the next day; Victor K. McElheny, in researching his biography of Watson, Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution, found a clipping of a six-paragraph New York Times article written from London and dated 16 May 1953 with the headline "Form of 'Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned." The article ran in an early edition and was then pulled to make space for news deemed more important. (The New York Times subsequently ran a longer article on 12 June 1953). The Cambridge University undergraduate newspaper Varsity also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday 30 May 1953. Bragg's original announcement at a Solvay conference on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953 went unreported by the press.^{[citation needed]}

The members of the Cambridge and King's College laboratories agreed to report their interlocking work in three papers with continuous pagination in Nature.^[7]^[8]^[9] Wilkins then led the team that performed a range of meticulous experiments to establish the helical model rigorously.

Personal life

Wilkins married an art student, Ruth, when he was at Berkeley. They had a son. He married his second wife Patricia Ann Chidgey in 1959. They had four children, Sarah, George, Emily and William.

He published his autobiography, The Third Man of the Double Helix, in 2003.

Formerly classified UK security service papers reveal that, while working on the project, Wilkins came under suspicion of leaking atomic secrets. The files, released in August 2010, indicate surveillance of Wilkins ended by 1953.^[10] "After the war I wondered what I would do, as I was very disgusted with the dropping of two bombs on civilian centres in Japan," he told Britain's Encounter radio programme in 1999.^[11]

Recognition

A plaque commemorating Maurice Wilkins and his discovery, beneath the monument, Pongaroa, New Zealand

In 1960 he was presented with the American Public Health Association's Albert Lasker Award, and in 1962 he was made a Commander of the British Empire. Also in 1962 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Watson and Crick for the discovery of the structure of DNA.

On Saturday 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch in the BBC TV programme That Was The Week That Was with the Nobel Prizes being referred to as 'The Alfred Nobel Peace Pools.'

In 2000, King's College London opened the Franklin-Wilkins Building in honour of Dr. Franklin's and Professor Wilkins' work at the college.^[12]

The wording on the new DNA sculpture (which was donated by James Watson) outside Clare College's Thirkill Court, Cambridge, England is

a) on the base:

i) "These strands unravel during cell reproduction. Genes are encoded in the sequence of bases."

ii) "The double helix model was supported by the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins."

b) on the helices:

i) "The structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson while Watson lived here at Clare."

ii) "The molecule of DNA has two helical strands that are linked by base pairs Adenine – Thymine or Guanine – Cytosine."

References

^ Arnott, S.; Kibble, T. W. B.; Shallice, T. (2006). "Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins. 15 December 1916 -- 5 October 2004: Elected FRS 1959". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 52: 455–478. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2006.0031. PMID 18551798. edit
^ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962. Nobel Prize Site for Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962.
^ http://dnaandsocialresponsibility.blogspot.com/2010/09/maurice-wilkins-brief-biography.html
^ Wilkins, M. H. F. (1952). "Engineering, Biophysics and Physics at King's College, London: New Building". Nature 170 (4320): 261. doi:10.1038/170261a0. edit
^ See Figure 1 of the Nobel lecture by Wilkins. See other examples at the King's College website for DNA structure.
^ See Chapter 2 of The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology by Horace Freeland Judson published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (1996) ISBN 0-87969-478-5.
^ Watson, J. D.; Crick, F. H. C. (1953). "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid". Nature 171 (4356): 737–738. doi:10.1038/171737a0. PMID 13054692. edit
^ Wilkins, M. H.; Stokes, A. R.; Wilson, H. R. (1953). "Molecular structure of deoxypentose nucleic acids". Nature 171 (4356): 738–740. doi:10.1038/171738a0. PMID 13054693. edit
^ Franklin, R. E.; Gosling, R. G. (1953). "Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate". Nature 171 (4356): 740–741. doi:10.1038/171740a0. PMID 13054694. edit
^ Alan Travis "Nobel-winning British scientist accused of spying by MI5, papers reveal", The Guardian, 26 August 2010
^ "A Bunch of Genes". Radio National. 4 July 1999. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/enc/stories/s39549.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
^ Maddox, p. 323

Books featuring Maurice Wilkins

Robert Olby; 'Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick (1916–2004), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, Jan 2008
Robert Olby; "Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets", Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, ISBN 9780879697983, published in August 2009.
John Finch; 'A Nobel Fellow On Every Floor', Medical Research Council 2008, 381 pp, ISBN 978-1840469-40-0; this book is all about the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
Robert Olby; "The Path to The Double Helix: Discovery of DNA"; first published in October 1974 by MacMillan, with foreword by Francis Crick; ISBN 0-486-68117-3; the definitive DNA textbook, revised in 1994, with a 9 page postscript.
Horace Freeland Judson, "The Eighth Day of Creation. Makers of the Revolution in Biology"; CSHL Press 1996 ISBN 0-87969-478-5.
Watson, James D. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA; The Norton Critical Edition, which was published in 1980, edited by Gunther S. Stent:ISBN 0-393-01245-X.
Chomet, S. (Ed.), D.N.A. Genesis of a Discovery, 1994, Newman- Hemisphere Press, London; NB a few copies are available from Newman-Hemisphere at 101 Swan Court, London SW3 5RY (phone: 07092 060530).
Maddox, Brenda, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, 2002. ISBN 0-06-018407-8.
Sayre, Anne 1975. Rosalind Franklin and DNA. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. ISBN 0-393-32044-8.
Wilkins, Maurice, The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins ISBN 0-19-860665-6.
Crick, Francis, 1990. What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (Basic Books reprint edition) ISBN 0-465-09138-5
Watson, James D., The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, Atheneum, 1980, ISBN 0-689-70602-2 (first published in 1968)
Krude, Torsten (Ed.) DNA Changing Science and Society: The Darwin Lectures for 2003 CUP 2003, includes a lecture by Sir Aaron Klug on Rosalind Franklin's involvement in the determination of the structure of DNA.
Ridley, Matt; "Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Eminent Lives)" was first published in June 2006 in the US and then in the UK September 2006, by HarperCollins Publishers; 192 pp, ISBN 0-06-082333-X; this short book is in the publisher's "Eminent Lives" series.
"Light Is A Messenger, the life and science of William Lawrence Bragg" by Graeme Hunter, ISBN 0-19-852921-X; Oxford University Press, 2004.
"Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II" by Soraya De Chadarevian; CUP 2002, 444 pp; ISBN 0-521-57078-6; it includes James Watson's "well kept open secret" from April 2003!
Tait, Sylvia & James "A Quartet of Unlikely Discoveries" (Athena Press 2004) ISBN 184401343X

External links

Professor Maurice Wilkins, Obituary from The Independent on Sunday, 9 October 2004.
Crick's personal papers at Mandeville Special Collections Library, Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego
Olby, R. (2003). "Quiet debut for the double helix". Nature 421 (6921): 402–405. doi:10.1038/nature01397. PMID 12540907. http://josephgroup.ucsd.edu/CHEM13/DNA1.pdf. edit
for the People's Archive/BBC 90 story interview with Crick AND the 236 story interview with Brenner.
Presentation speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony in 1962.
Reading University site on 50th anniversary of Discovery of the structure of DNA. Includes a list of Books on the subject.
Biography (from Nobel)
Biography (from the New Zealand Edge)
Discovery Story in BA Magazine
DNA: The King's Story detailing Wilkins' involvement in elucidating the structure of DNA
DNA and Social Responsibility Project: Archiving Maurice Wilkin's Personal Papers
List of classic papers in Nature on DNA structure
Listen to Francis Crick and James Watson talking on the BBC
[1] – for reproduction of the original text in June 1953.
[2] for Lynne Elkins' article on Franklin.
New York Times 50th anniversary series of excellent articles.
[3] The first American newspaper coverage of the discovery of the DNA structure: Saturday, 13 June 1953 The New York Times
Listen to an oral history interview with Maurice Wilkins – a life story interview recorded for National Life Stories at the British Library

v d e DNA structure research at King's College London 1947-1959

Rosalind Franklin · Raymond Gosling · John Randall · Alexander Stokes · Maurice Wilkins · Herbert Wilson

v d e Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine (1951–1975)

Max Theiler (1951) Selman Waksman (1952) Hans Krebs / Fritz Lipmann (1953) John Enders / Thomas Weller / Frederick Robbins (1954) Hugo Theorell (1955) André Cournand / Werner Forssmann / Dickinson W. Richards (1956) Daniel Bovet (1957) George Beadle / Edward Tatum / Joshua Lederberg (1958) Severo Ochoa / Arthur Kornberg (1959) Frank Burnet / Peter Medawar (1960) Georg von Békésy (1961) Francis Crick / James D. Watson / Maurice Wilkins (1962) John Eccles / Alan Hodgkin / Andrew Huxley (1963) Konrad Bloch / Feodor Lynen (1964) François Jacob / André Lwoff / Jacques Monod (1965) Francis Rous / Charles B. Huggins (1966) Ragnar Granit / Haldan Hartline / George Wald (1967) Robert W. Holley / Har Khorana / Marshall Nirenberg (1968) Max Delbrück / Alfred Hershey / Salvador Luria (1969) Bernard Katz / Ulf von Euler / Julius Axelrod (1970) Earl Sutherland, Jr. (1971) Gerald Edelman / Rodney Porter (1972) Karl von Frisch / Konrad Lorenz / Nikolaas Tinbergen (1973) Albert Claude / Christian de Duve / George Palade (1974) David Baltimore / Renato Dulbecco / Howard Temin (1975)

Complete list (1901–1925) (1926–1950) (1951–1975) (1976–2000) (2001–2025)

Persondata
Name	Wilkins, Maurice
Alternative names
Short description	molecular biologist,
Date of birth	15 December 1916
Place of birth	Pongaroa, Wairarapa, New Zealand
Date of death	5 October 2004
Place of death	Blackheath, London, United Kingdom

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