The Molecule of Life: DNA

Crick and Watson, a pair of students in 1950's Cambridge, used data from Rosalind Franklin's lab in London to build a model of the structure of DNA. Their famous double-helix model led to an understanding of how DNA carries genetic information and how it copies itself.

Top left: A fibre of DNA is drawn out of a droplet of DNA dissolved in water prior to exposure to the X-ray beam.

Top Right: Rosalind Franklin, played by Juliet Stephenson in "Life Story", working on the X-ray Diffraction data (on the slide projector screen in the background) which lead to the structure of DNA.

Bottom Left: Crick and Watson (Tim Piggot-Smith and Geoff Goldblum) examine a sketch of Franklin's X-ray diffraction photograph.

Bottom Right: Crick and Watson's model of DNA.

(Images from "Life Story" © BBC Enterprises 1986)