| 11. A Model from King's College |
1951-52 |
Although Maurice Wilkins was not inclined towards model building, and even though Rosalind Franklin was adamantly opposed
to this process until one was certain of the specifics of a structure, at least one person at King's decided to give it a
go. R. B. D. (Bruce) Fraser, a Ph.D. candidate, had discussed Rosalind's DNA work with her and was curious to fashion a model
based upon what had been discovered thus far. This, and suppositions as to what might be found, resulted in an elementary
structure which correctly predicted the helical shape, the stacked bases, and the phosphates on the outside. It also predicted
3 chains, a property that both Maurice and Rosalind were convinced was correct. This was the same mistake Linus Pauling was
to make a year later.
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Photo of MRC Biophysics Research Unit, intra-departmental cricket match (from left to right Maurice Wilkins, Bill Seeds, Bruce
Fraser, Mary Fraser, Raymond Gosling (standing), Geoffrey Brown).
- 1951
  
"In 1953 Maurice [Wilkins] cabled me in Australia to write a note from him to submit to Nature setting out details of my 1951 structure, but unfortunately he never sent it off...I managed to recover a copy of the "note
that was never sent" from Maurice. Unfortunately he could not locate the diagrams and I did not make copies (remember this
was before the days of photocopiers!)."
- Bruce Fraser November 1, 2002
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