Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA

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The Scientist from the Start

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born in 1920 in London into an educated, prominent Jewish family. From childhood she showed an exceptional aptitude for science and mathematics — unusual for a girl in that era. Against the wishes of her father, who believed women's education was less important, she won a place at Newnham College, Cambridge, to study chemistry. She graduated in 1941 and threw herself into wartime research on coal and carbon structures, publishing work of lasting significance before she was twenty-five.