FEATURE | The Forgotten Scientists

Introduction

Have you ever heard of Rosalind Franklin? Maybe so, but what about Chien-Shiung Wu? Do you know anything about Nettie Stevens? These are just three of many talented scientists who did not get the credit they deserved for their work. Throughout history, many hard-working people, especially scientists, have been forgotten or have not been recognized for their contributions to the world we live in. It is important for us to remember these people to honor their legacy and make sure the right people are recognized for certain discoveries. 

Rosalind Franklin: Discovering DNA

Rosalind Franklin was born in London in 1920. As a young adult, she completed studies in physical chemistry at Newnham College of Cambridge University in 1941, and worked in laboratories of the British Coal Utilization Research Association the next year. She studied the structure of coal and coke, which produced influential results with useful applications for the industrial process. In 1945, Franklin returned to Cambridge to receive a Ph.D, and in 1947, she left England for Laboratoire Centrale des Services Chimiques de l’Etat in Paris. She studied the structure of carbon and applied X-ray crystallographic methods to learn more about the crystal structure. In 1951, Franklin returned to King’s College in London, England, to study the structure of crystalline deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as a research fellow in biophysics, where she applied the same x-ray crystallographic methods used to study the structure of carbon on DNA. This helped her invent new techniques for the application of X-ray crystallography, which led to her discovery that the phosphate sugar groups are located on the outer part of DNA. While at King’s College, Franklin had a co-worker named Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004), who took her data and showed it to James D. Watson (1928-2025) and Francis H.C. Crick (1916-2004) without her consent. These scientists then used Rosalind Franklin's data without her consent to conclude that the DNA molecule has a double helix structure, and their proposal was published in Nature, a scientific journal, in 1953. That same year, Franklin moved to the laboratory of crystallographer J.D. Bernal at Birkbeck College, and subsequent studies of DNA added support for the idea that the double helix model was its structure. Franklin also undertook the determination of the structure of plant viruses, including tobacco mosaic virus, and demonstrated the single standard helical virus for its RNA, which was a significant discovery for molecular biology. Unfortunately, she lived a short life of 37 years, dying of cancer in 1958. Due to her death, she was not eligible for the Nobel Prize that Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared in 1962, but her contributions were also ignored by others and washed over in the telling of history.

Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics

Chien-Shiung Wu,  born in 1912 near Shanghai, China, planned to be a scientist from a young age. She attended the National Central University in Nanjing and earned her degree in physics by writing a thesis on X-rays. At Shanghai’s National Academy of Sciences, she then researched x-ray crystallography and, in 1936, began studying and concentrating her research on atomic particles at the University of California at Berkeley. Among her professors was Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), known best for devising the atomic bomb. Wu created a method to separate two kinds of rays emitted during the beta decay, a type of radioactivity in which the nucleus expels high-speed electrons and becomes a different element. She observed the discharged electromagnetic energy as a decelerated particle moving through matter, validating her hypothesis. In addition, Wu investigated the radioactive noble gases produced during the uranium fission, which led to her graduation in 1940. After her graduation, Wu conducted research on radiation, and Ernest O. Lawrence was invited to present her lecture nationwide after becoming the authority on fission. Soon after, she became the first female instructor at Princeton University and joined the Manhattan Project at Columbia University until after WWII. Subsequently, Wu returned to research on beta decay and developed new techniques to achieve more precise experimental results. In 1956, Wu tested a theory for her colleagues Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, who wanted to prove that the principle of the conservation of parity, which stated that in nuclear structures an object and its mirror image behave symmetrically, was not always true. Wu examined beta rays, which are the electrons in the nuclei of radioactive substances, by cooling down the nuclei to make their thermal motion slower in order to observe the direction opposite to that of the spinning nucleus. After experimenting, she verified her results and asked fellow researchers to duplicate her methodology. Then, in 1957, Wu announced her findings, and although she did the experimenting and was a co-author of articles regarding her experiments, Lee and Yang won the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics for conceptualizing the theory that she had verified. Luckily, Wu received the National Medal of Science and was promoted to full professor; however, these accolades do not quite satisfactorily honor her contributions to the scientific community.

Nettie Stevens: Laying the Foundation for Modern Genetics

Nettie Stevens, born in 1861, provided the evidence that sex is determined through the inheritance of specific chromosomes in germ cells, and that chromosomes exist as pairs in cells of the body. Stevens began her career as a school teacher from 1883 to 1892 and a public librarian from 1893 to 1895, but at the age of 31, she returned to school to earn a B.A. from Normal School in Westfield, Massachusetts. She ended up not only completing her B.A. in 1899, but also her M.A. at Stanford University in 1900. In 1903, she received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College and began working there as a research fellow before becoming a reader in experimental morphology until 1905 and an associate in experimental morphology between 1905 and 1912. While at Bryn Mawr in 1905, Stevens began working with insect germ cells and realized that sperm cells had either 6 or 7 chromosomes, while egg cells in the same species always had 7 chromosomes. The sperm with 6 chromosomes produced male offspring, while the sperm with 7 chromosomes always produced females. This made it so offspring with 14 chromosomes were female, while offspring with only 13 chromosomes developed as male. The female-inducing chromosome was named the X chromosome, and the pattern was termed the XO mechanism of sex determination. In 1906, Stevens and E.B. Wilson (1856-1939) reported that they had independently discovered a second chromosomal inheritance pattern in other insects in which sperm had equal numbers of chromosomes. The sperm that produced the male offspring had a newly discovered Y chromosome, which created a second system called the XY mechanism, which is now known as the inheritance pattern characteristic of most of the higher animals. Stevens continued her cytology research and subsequently discovered that the chromosomes of somatic cells exist as paired structures in addition to the supernumerary chromosomes in the cells of certain insects. Unlike Rosalind Franklin, instead of getting recognized for her discoveries after her death, she was actually fully credited during her lifetime. However, later texts focused credit on E.B. Wilson and his colleagues, and reduced the importance of her contributions.

Conclusion

These amazing scientists’ impact on the scientific community are too often overlooked. Recognizing their achievements helps us not only to educate ourselves on influential individuals, but it also enriches our understanding of the scientific process. Learning the reality of history and embracing diverse backgrounds helps to gain a deeper understanding of science and build a more inclusive community. Rosalind Franklin, Chien-Shiung Wu, and Nettie Stevens are just three of the many amazing scientists who deserve more recognition than they have received throughout history, and educating ourselves about them helps to prevent stories like theirs from repeating in the future.