Maurice Wilkins, in full Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins, (born December 15, 1916, Pongaroa, New Zealand died October 6, 2004, London, England), New Zealand-born British biophysicist whose X-ray diffraction studies of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) proved crucial to the determination of DNA’s molecular structure by James D. Watson and Francis Crick. For this work the three scientists were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Wilkins, the son of a physician (who was originally from Dublin), was educated at King Edward’s School in Birmingham, England, and St. John’s College, Cambridge. His doctoral thesis, completed for the University of Birmingham in
Historians have long debated the role that Dr. Franklin played in identifying the double helix. A new opinion essay argues that she was an “equal contributor.”
Today is the 115th day of 2023 and the 37th day of spring. TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1859, British, French and German engineers began construction on the Suez Canal in Egypt.