Term Paper on James Watson
In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick exposed the structure of DNA, the double
helix. However, when one researches this finding, ethical questions relating to
Rosalind Franklin and the part she played in the discovery are elevated.
Ultimately one finds that, in making their unearthing, Watson and Crick used
Franklin's research without her permission or awareness. This unethical act has
allusion even today, especially concerning sexism in science. In 1951 Rosalind
Franklin started working in Professor Randall's lab at King's College, London.
Randall hired her to set up an X-ray crystallography unit in his lab because she
had been trained X-ray diffraction technique during her stay in Paris. She set
up the unit and began investigating the crystal structure of deoxyribonucleic
acid, or DNA.
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Her colleague at King's College was Maurice Wilkins, who earlier to Franklin's
arrival had been working on DNA. However, he was doing biophysical and
biochemical analysis of the molecule, and so Wilkins and Franklin's two
different tactics to the problem should have been praising. Instead,
collaboration was made impossible when they got off on the wrong foot. Wilkins
had alleged Franklin was there to assist and augment his research, while
Franklin thought she was an equal member of the lab. This disagreement led to a
very terrible relationship between the two, and they almost never talked to each
other, let alone cooperated professionally. Meanwhile James Watson, an American,
was working in the Cavendish lab at Cambridge. Watson had a fellowship to study
biochemistry at a different university, but he trashed the agreement of the
fellowship and went to Cambridge after he heard Wilkins research about DNA.
After many months in Cambridge Watson asked the committee in charge of his
fellowship if he could be transferred to Cambridge, and he told them he was
there already. They decline to renew his fellowship but gave him a different,
smaller award. So he was able to continue his pursuit of the structure of DNA
with Francis Crick, another member of the Cavendish laboratory.
Neither Watson nor Crick was supposed to be working on DNA because Randall's lab
at King's College was already working on it, and it would be extravagant to have
both labs working on the same thing. (This was especially true in post - World
War II England; funds were tight as the economy tried to recover from the War.)
They carry on their work anyway, hoping to be the ones to solve one of the main
mysteries of life. Watson and Crick started playing with atomic models, trying
to reason out a logical structure based on their partial information. They came
up with a three-stranded structure with the phosphate sugar backbones on the
inside. They showed Wilkins and Franklin, who straightaway pointed out the
problems with the proposed structure. This failure gave the director of the
Cavendish lab, Lawrence Bragg, a possibility to put an end to Watson and Crick's
work on DNA. They continued to tinker with a range of ideas but not much was
accomplished.
More than a year later the American chemist, Linus Pauling, projected a
structure for DNA, which was similar to Watson and Crick's first effort. This
got them interested in the problem again. Then Watson went to talk to Wilkins at
King's College and Wilkins showed Watson one of Franklin's X-ray photographs,
which was the finest one ever taken. The photograph told Watson a great deal.
Watson comprehended that the final structure could easily be obtained with this
new picture. Watson went back to Cavendish and told Crick of the photograph, and
they began to work extremely on the project. Soon Watson came up with the final
piece of the puzzle, the base pairing system of adenine (A), thiamine (T),
guanine (G) and cytosine (C). Watson apprehend that if A paired with T, and G
paired with C, the two pairs had the same shape and would be held together
adequately by strong hydrogen bonds. He was able to fit the bases into a double
stranded phosphate sugar backbone helix with the phosphate sugar backbone on the
outside.
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Watson and Crick published their result in the scientific journal Nature in
April of 1953. They did not tell Franklin they had used some of her data, and
neither did Wilkins, so she had no idea. Even after she recognizes what had
happened, Watson and Crick never acknowledged her assistance. After Watson saw
Rosalind Franklin's X-ray photograph and realized that the DNA molecule was a
double helix, he could have go on in several different ways. He could have
recommended a joint project with King's College. However, it is uncertain that
Rosalind Franklin would have agreed. Both Watson and Sayre say that Franklin was
somewhat obstinate and difficult to work with. (Sayre 1975)(Watson 1968) The
suggestion of partnership after Watson saw the critical photograph would not be
very ethical either. It would seem more like an taunt than a sincere attempt to
work together since he had all the data he needed. She would either have to
agree to work with someone who deceitfully got a hold of her work, or refuse the
offer. Also, the suggestion of collaboration would make it known how Watson
received the X-ray photographs and that might have affected his profession.
Definitely this was not the best choice of action for Watson.
Watson and Crick could have continued working on DNA. They could have
acknowledged Franklin's input in the publication of their discovery. In this
case, they would also have to admit using Franklin's unpublished work without
her permission or awareness. This might have turned out to be a great barrier in
their path towards the Nobel Prize.
According to Sayre, there existed a casual agreement between Cavendish
Laboratory and King's College that the DNA problem was the "property" of the
King's College. (Sayre, 1975) Neither Watson nor Crick was permissible to work
on DNA. (Watson, 1968) However, to a man as spirited and determined as Watson
this choice was obviously out of contemplation.
Instead, Watson and Crick chose another path. They published their report on the
molecular structure of DNA without ever recognizing Rosalind Franklin's critical
contribution to their discovery, thus stripping her of any credit that she
deserved.
In his account of the discovery of DNA, The Double Helix, Watson is unethical,
particularly concerning Rosalind Franklin. Throughout the book he refers to her
in a demeaning manner, calling her "Rosy" and "anti-helical" (implying that she
completely rejected a helical structure for DNA). Calling Franklin
"anti-helical" is not only unsuitable for a published work, but also untrue. In
mid-November of 1951 (two years before Watson and Crick discovered the double
helix) Franklin gave a lecture at King's College. In the lecture, which Watson
attended, she affirmed that DNA was probably a helix with the sugar-phosphate
backbone on the outside. Watson unscientifically neglected to take notes at the
lecture, and unprofessionally neglected to mention this in The Double Helix.
Instead, he discusses thinking, at the lecture, how Franklin would look if she
"did something novel with her hair. (Watson, 1968)
Further, in the epilogue he affirms that despite his earlier statements,
Franklin was a superb scientist (Watson, 1968) Nonetheless, Watson's behavior
towards Franklin in the body of his book was unethical. This is true
particularly considering that Franklin had died by the time The Double Helix was
published, and thus could not notify her side of the story.
First, the truth is that Rosalind Franklin did not find out DNA. The essential
idea of base pairing came solely from James Watson. When Rosalind Franklin
learned that the Cavendish group had exposed the double helix she was happy that
it had been discovered, and that her 1951 proposition had been correct. (Klug,
1968) Further, and in part because of this, Rosalind Franklin never took up her
case herself. Finally, Rosalind Franklin died before Wilkins, Crick and Watson
were rewarded the Nobel Prize. In autumn 1956 she was diagnosed with ovarian
cancer, and died on April 16, 1958, at the age of 37.
Works Cited
Sayre, Ann. Rosalind Franklin and DNA. New York, WW Norton & Co., 1975.
Watson, James D. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the
Structure of DNA. Athenaeum, 1968.
Klug, Aaron. "Rosalind Franklin and the discovery of the Structure of DNA".
Nature. August 24, 1968.
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