MAURICE HUGH FREDERICK WILKINS PASSED
SHORTLY AFTER FRANCIS CRICK
Maurice Wilkins died last
Wednesday, 70 days after Francis Crick’s passing.
Maurice Hugh Frederick
Wilkins, who shared a Nobel Prizes with James Watson and Francis Crick for one
of the most celebrated discoveries of the last century, was 87. He pioneered a
technique called X-ray fibre diffraction, which can reveal the
molecular structure of biological material such as collagen or DNA. Previously,
X-ray images could only be derived from crystals, which excluded many large
biological molecules that prefer to form strands. Wilkins’ research provided
the proof that Watson & Crick needed to back up their theory about DNA’s
structure.
The Third Man of the
Double Helix, as his autobiography published last year billed him, worked on the DNA
project with Rosalind Franklin -nicknamed “the dark lady of DNA”- the scientist
who took the X-ray photograph that gave Watson and Crick their celebrated
eureka moment.
Wilkins, born in Pongaroa, New Zealand, was still a staff member of the King’s College in London where he had worked since 1946.