Great Lives

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

BBC Radio 4 FM

Great Lives: Rosalind Franklin picked by Kate Bingham, former head of the UK government's vaccine taskforce

Rosalind Franklin picked by Kate Bingham, former head of the UK government's vaccine taskforce

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Rosalind Franklin picked by Kate Bingham, former head of the UK government's vaccine taskforce

Rosalind Franklin, whose work was central to the discovery of DNA.

Dame Kate Bingham picks Rosalind Franklin, who contributed to our understanding of viruses, coal and DNA.

Rosalind Franklin was born in 1920 and studied Natural Sciences. After working in Paris at the Laboratoire Central - where she became an x-ray crystallographer - she moved to King's College London. Here she helped to take the famous Photograph 51 which led to the discovery of the double helix shape of DNA. Her contribution was famously and disgracefully downplayed by the men who won the Nobel Prize. Later at Birkbeck College she undertook pioneering work of the structure of viruses before dying of ovarian cancer, aged just 37.

Nominating Rosalind Franklin is Kate Bingham. She chaired the UK government's Vaccine Taskforce, and she also attended the same school as Rosalind Franklin - St Paul's Girls' School in London. Further contributions from Dr Patricia Fara of Clare College, Cambridge, and Howard Bailes, archivist of St Paul's School.

Archive contributors include Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Colin Franklin.

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Great Lives

Rosalind Franklin picked by Kate Bingham, former head of the UK government's vaccine taskforce

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4