DNA and Social Responsibility

So long and thanks for all the hits!

2011-05-31T14:43:00.000+01:00

Sadly, this will be the last post on the DNA and Social Responsibility blog as the project is nearing an end. I hope those who have read the blog have taken away an interest in the life and career of Maurice Wilkins and how the papers that are held in the King's College Archive are a fantastic resource for future research in not only the history of genetics but also the wider role played by science in society in the twentieth century. Helping to catalogue this collection has been an enjoyable experience as it has introduced me to the delights of x-ray diffraction photographs; Fourier Transforms and Electron Density Maps not to mention the myriad political scientific groups most notably, BSSRS.

As a finale,I would like to sign off by sharing my favourite Wilkins' laboratory doodle. Cartoon is somewhat anarchic but does convey how science for Maurice Wilkins is a creative enterprise that still retained a slight hint of alchemy in the proceedings.

'Ways out of the Arms Race": The Second International Scientists' Congress

2011-05-31T13:54:00.000+01:00

During the 1980's, Maurice Wilkins spent a significant amount of time promoting and campaigning on disarmament and development issues. While maintaining his long running membership of British Pugwash, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) and the World Federation of Scientific Worker's (WFSW), he also became honorary President of the Food and Disarmament International (FDI) organisation and an active member of scientists' against nuclear arms (SANA). It was the later that led to his involvement in the 'Ways out of the Arms Race' Second International Scientists' Congress held at Imperial College London, on the 2-4 December 1988. The conference aim was for imminent scientists from across the globe to discuss papers on nuclear, chemical and biological disarmament. It succeeded in doing so with the added benefit of providing political pressure by mobilising its attendance to protest on two concurrent political events: the abduction and imprisonment of the Israeli nuclear plant technician, Dr Mordechai Vanunu and the poison gas attacks by the Iraqi Army in Halabja in 1988. Evidence of the petitions and demonstrations are recorded in the papers of Maurice Wilkins which includes candid replies to him from representatives of the Israeli and Iraqi governments.

Campaign relating to Dr Mordechai Vanunu

Dr Mordechai Vanunu, was a former nuclear technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center from 1976-1985. In 1986, whilst in Sydney, Australia, he met a Sunday Times journalist and revealed knowledge of the Israeli nuclear weapons programme before accompanying the journalist to London. It was during his time in London that the Israeli Government decided to capture Vanunu and hatched a plan to remove him from UK territory by getting an undercover Mosad agent to pretend to be an American tourist, named Cindy who Vanunu agreed to accompany to Rome. In Rome he was drugged and freighted back to Israeli where he was imprisoned for treason and confined for 18 years, including eleven years of solitary confinement.

During the Congress, a demonstration was organised to the Israeli Embassy in London where a petition would be handed in asking for clemency for Mr Vananu. A significant number of the delegates signed the petition including fellow Nobel Prize winners, Dorothy Hodgkin and Joseph Rotblat.

The following summer, Wilkins received a reply from the Israeli Government's Ministry of Justice:

Campaign condemning gas attacks on Kurdish civilians

The Halabja massacre is now well known event due in part to the build up to the Second Iraq war and the fall of Sadam Hussain's regime. However, at the time of their occurence the international response was ambiguous with some international media coverage and western governmental officials siding with the official Iraqi line that no poison gas attacks were used against the Kurdish people. Wilkins sent a letter to the Iraqi ambassador in London and recieved a detailed reply with a number of attachments. The letter provides evidence of the divided media coverage and general lack of facts available allowing for passionate denial of any use of chemical weapons and a dismissal of the claims as part of an anti-Iraqi conspiracy.

Example of the Second International Scientists' Congress petition against the Iraqi government after the chemical attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja.

Objectifying DNA

2011-05-31T13:32:00.001+01:00

The artefacts within the combined papers of the Maurice Wilkins and Biophysics collection include some of the most striking items in our holdings. Correspondence may have warmth and wit and the experimental notebooks may actually give the how and why but nothing beats the sheer visual punch of the DNA wire model or a X-ray diffraction camera. The artefacts are all the more impressive due to the diversity that the collection holds. Highlights include: original DNA fibres supplied by the Swiss biochemist, Rudolf Signer, which were the main source of DNA used in the X-ray diffraction experiments by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling; several X-ray diffraction cameras including the micro camera used to obtain "Photo 51", the picture of B structure DNA that so sharply showed a helical structure of DNA; DNA models and diagrams that the Biophysics Unit used to construct and refine more detailed models of DNA, with the pride and joy being the several metre long roll of the DNA molecular model ceremoniously nicknamed the "DNA toilet paper". These are a few of our favourite things and they are joined by many other items that directly relate to DNA and previous microscopic research carried out on the subject.

A few of the DNA related artefacts at King's Archives such as the single fibre X-ray camera used by Rosalind Franklin, glass vials containing original DNA samples used in the X-ray diffraction experiments, DNA diagram and Biophysics photo index

The collection has a remarkable degree of preserved DNA samples from the 1950s that not only include the Rudolf Signer Calf Thymus DNA that produced excellent B configuration X ray patterns sample but also DNA samples prepared from other scientists such as Erwin Chargaff and Leonard Hamilton which used a variety of other DNA sources like bacterial cultures and human DNA.

Image of a molecular model of DNA reproduced for the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix at King's College London

2011-05-05T12:08:00.001+01:00

Image of a molecular model of DNA reproduced for the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix at King's College London, a photo by DNA and Social Responsibility on Flickr.

Two new Flickr sets taken from 35mm mounted slide series. Only a small sample of over thousand images that were digitally captured over the last two months. Highlights include high quality images of Rosalind Franklin, x-ray diffraction images and models of DNA and images relating to Maurice Wilkins' involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

"Dear M": the transatlantic DNA collaboration of Maurice Wilkins and Leonard Hamilton

2011-04-19T14:43:00.001+01:00

This week's post calls attention to a series of correspondence written in the 1950s that documents the DNA research carried by Wilkins and his group at King's College London from 1953 to1960. The correspondence is with Dr Leonard D Hamilton, a British medical researcher and pathologist based in the United States who worked for the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and later the Brookhaven National Laboratory. He provided DNA samples to Wilkins at King's from 1952 into the 1960s. As my title suggests the two were firm friends and their letters are refreshingly candid. Although these letters do not document the breakthrough research on the structure of the double helix like the similar correspondence between Wilkins and Crick they do give us a good picture of how Wilkins coped with the news and life thereafter.

DNA Samples: Supply and Demand

In 1953, Leonard Hamilton became the principal provider of DNA for the King's team. Samples had previously been provided by a host of other international scientists such as Rudolf Signer, Erwin Chargaff and Harriet Ephrussi and there was a great pressure to produce better DNA samples now it had been established that DNA was the basis of genes.Wilkins and his team were also under pressure to provide a more detailed double helical model to confirm that the structure was correct and not an equally valid alternative structure.

Figure 1: Photocopy of a letter from Wilkins to Hamilton, dated 28 May 1953: Wilkins thanks Hamilton for the DNA sample taken from a mouse sarcoma and generally expresses an eagerness to press on with further DNA research.

In the above letter, Wilkins shows his excitement over the diffraction image obtained using the S-180 mouse sarcoma sample. He also expresses the need for greater quantities and variant salts and solutions that becomes a constant theme of this correspondence, as this quotation from a letter from Wilkins on the 9 June 1954 reveals:

"As I thought I made clear, what we need is better DNAs and hence I was very disappointed to find all the samples you sent recently were no better than the usual quality. We have not the time to test laboriously numerous samples in the hope one might be good. The three dry samples were have had already and those in solution, owning to a lack of warning, arrived at this end and were held at the airport for several days and appear to have deteriorated".

The problem of the supply of demand of DNA were exacerbated by the trans-Atlantic nature of the partnership. Communication was the biggest issue. Before the days of global mass-communication, the main medium for communication was by letter or telegram (international telephone calls had only recently been introduced and were very expensive). The frustration was felt on both sides of the Atlantic especially with the additional pressures of journal and conference deadlines. Despite these stresses, they made progress as this quote from Wilkins on 5 November 1954 states:

"The 10 week exposure came off today and is a great success. it is one of the biggest improvements we have ever had in A pictures and is very much better than the best before. Will send a copy soon and I hope I will spur you on to even better things...Good old Leonard!"

Living in the Shadow of the Watson-Crick Model

One of the reasons why these letters make compelling reading is the scattered references to the discovery of the Double Helix. In the letters we get a contemporary commentary on the initial impact of the discovery and personal opinions on some of the key characters such as Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin. Of particular interest is the response of Hamilton who considered that Wilkins and King's College London Biophysics Unit had been hard done by Watson and Crick's model.

Figure 2: Letter from Leonard Hamilton to Wilkins dated October 12 1954: In this letter, Hamilton describes a visit from Rosalind Franklin and also his plan to air off a little "pro-Wilkins propaganda!" at a nucleic acids conference.

From the correspondence, it is clear that the battles and wounds caused by the discovery are still fresh but the scientific interest in the findings ( such as the journal Scientific American in Figure 2) are already calling for a narrative of the discovery. Hamilton's repeated opposition to calling the double helix the Watson-Crick model is an example of this increasing scientific interest and his own attempts to inform the American scientific community of the role that King's Biophysics Unit played in its creation.

Wilkins' own initial thoughts and feelings were somewhat more ambigious. For example, his assessment of Francis Crick in the letter shown in Figure 1 states:

"Taken the Watson Crick model with a grain of salt. Francis is quite certain he can solve all the problems of the universe by pure thought and his lack of facts had lost him many friends temporarily until he recovers from DNA hysteria. I am very fond of Francis but he can be a bit much at times and he can be a ruthless careerist when he thinks it suits him. but keep that quiet to ourselves. We both like him a lot so there is no harm saying this to you".

His reaction is in line with his famous letter to Crick on hearing the discovery where he called Crick and Watson a couple of "old rogues" but accepted the model gracefully. Yet in this letter he does admit a degree of resentment over the Crick's "careerist" tendencies but not enough to irreprecibly damage their friendship.

Finals thoughts

The correspondence between these two friends is of great reading for anyone interested in the story of the double helix and the DNA research carried out at King's College London. By being both a commentary and account of the DNA research undertaken at King's in the fifties the letters acts as an informal guide to the work being carried out and excellent source of information of the different DNA salts and samples. For me, however, the best aspect of the letters is the openess and informality that Wilkins shares with his friend about his life and research.

Figure 3: Leonard Hamilton and Maurice Wilkins together in the 1960s.

Final words

"Do please reply soon. The nature of the gene depends on it. What piffle. M"

DNA on Display: Strandlines community visits King's Archive

2011-03-17T17:41:00.000Z

On 23 February 2011, King's College London Archives hosted a local event organised by the Strandlines Digital Community. A diverse group spent the afternoon exploring many of the treasures of our archives including artifacts and documents from our DNA collection. Information and anecdotes about the collection were provided by Patricia Methven, Head of King's College Archives and senior archivist Geoff Browell. A project blog on the Strandlines website provides a more comprehensive coverage of the day plus feedback from a number of visitors (http://www.strandlines.net/blog/archives-afternoon-23rd-february-2011).

Strandlines event at King's College London archives on the 23 February 2011

As the DNA & Social Responsibility project assistant, I was delighted to see the level of interest and enthusiasm for the DNA collection, whether it was copies of 'Photo 51' or the 'wire model of DNA'. Not only were people awe-struck by the beauty and importance of DNA artefacts and photographs but they were also charmed by the more personal items of our collection such as 'Radium Island', the boyhood adventure story by Maurice Wilkins. Overall, it was good to see that visitors come away appreciating the long tradition of scientific innovation at King's and the beneficial role that the archives can play in the local community.

Short and Simple (ish) Guide to X-ray Diffraction

2011-03-08T14:33:00.000Z

X-ray diffraction (or X-ray crystallography) was the chief physical method used to determine the structure of DNA. In this post, I will briefly and as simply as I can (which with my non-scientific background should not be a problem!) explain what x-ray diffraction technique is and its relative importance to the overall discovery.

What does X-ray diffraction actually mean?

X-ray diffraction is the method of projecting a beam of X-ray radiation at a target object and through to a photographic film on the far side. A series of spots appear on the photographic film following this exposure, which is formed by the x-ray radiation diffracting off the structure that they passed through. These diffraction patterns give an indication of the general structure of the object (such as an inorganic crystal or macro- molecule such as DNA) which can then be delineated using complex mathematical formulas.

Why use X-rays in the first place?

The reason why X-ray beam is required in the first place is that atoms are too small (0.1nm between them, bearing in mind that 1 millimetre = 1000000 nanometres) to be revealed using visible light and therefore could not be viewed by a light microscope (even an electron microscope does not possess the required magnification). X-ray radiation fits the appropriate wavelength to be diffracted by the object and produce visible results.

What causes the diffraction of the X-ray beams?

What the X-ray beam are diffracting is not the entire atom but the orbiting electrons (one of the component parts of an atom) that are close enough to the core (nucleus) of the atom to give a good indication of the structure of the unit cell (the term used for the repeating unit found in crystals and macromolecules). The end image is known as an electron density map of that unit cell. However due to the incredibly weak image a single molecule would produce, a crystalline structure is used instead, for example common salt (NaCl), since a crystalline structure provides a huge number of molecules arranged in the same orientation and therefore produces the same scattering effect on the X-ray beams.


In this diagram, the diffraction of the X-ray beam causes an image with a helical arrangement to form as all the DNA molecules in a fibre are aligned in the same direction.

X-ray diffraction of nucleic acids at King’s College London from 1950 to 1953

X-ray diffraction studies on DNA began in June 1950 when Maurice Wilkins asked PhD student Raymond Gosling to assist him in diffracting the DNA fibre samples prepared by the Swiss biochemist, Rudolf Signer. Fibre diffraction did not usually provide good quality images because of the thinness of the fibres and therefore a very small mass to scatter the radiation. Nevertheless, the fibres’ remarkable uniformity when wetted allowed Wilkins to manipulate them into a bundle and mount them on a wire frame to obtain x-ray diffraction images. The initial images showed promise but Wilkins and Gosling were greatly assisted by J T Randall’s own experience with X-ray diffraction. He advised how the surrounding air could affect the x-ray scattering. The solution was to pass hydrogen through the camera and control the relative humidity of the sample. With this in place, the resulting images were much sharper and showed a clear crystalline diffraction pattern.

X-ray diffraction pattern obtained by M H F Wilkins and R Gosling in late 1950 showing a clear crystalline arrangement.

It was in late 1950 that the theoretical physicist Alec Stokes first noticed an interesting observation from the images. He realised that there was no diffraction at all along the length of the molecules: a sign that DNA might be helical. However, the King’s College team needed far sharper images to confirm this hypothesis. This required a new X-ray camera that could work on single fibres. Through a fortunate coincidence, Werner Ehrenberg and W E Spears had just developed one at Birkbeck: this was generously loaned to the King’s College team.

Before the new camera was set up, it was decided that Rosalind Franklin, who was joining the laboratory from Paris, would replace Wilkins in producing the x-ray diffraction images with the continued assistance of Raymond Gosling. Both Stokes and Wilkins continued working on the problem with the latter embarking on some rough tests with the old X-ray diffraction camera on various DNA specimens that produced an observed “X” crossed pattern. The X pattern of diffraction was created by the x-ray radiation scattering at right angles off the "zigzag" structure of the DNA chain. This interpretation was further supported when Franklin and Gosling produced the first “B” structure X-ray patterns in the late summer of 1951. This was a crucial development as it showed two observed states of DNA: crystalline “A” and semi-crystalline “B” (the best B structure diffraction photograph became known as “Photo 51”). The photos also supported the predicted observed readings of a helix that Alec Stokes had developed using the mathematical technique known as Bessel functions.

Plot of Bessel Functions for a smooth helix, named "Waves at Bessel-on-sea" by Alec Stokes who completed the calculations for the diagram over a single train journey.

It was now Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin disagreed over the direction of the research in finding the overall structure. Wilkins was keen on hypothetical model building while Franklin favoured a more systematic study of the structure. This parting of ways can be partially explained as stemming from the limitations of the x-ray diffraction process itself. For example, the evidence from the photos clearly pointed to a helical structure but this begged question: what type of helix? Helices in nature could occur in single, double and even triple strands and there was no clear indication, which was the right number. This is why the King’s College London attempt at model building proved to be a failure when the model made by Bruce Fraser showed a triple helix based on the chemical readings but was unable to fit with the rest of the x-ray data. A crucial piece of the puzzle was missing and related closely to DNA’s function of providing the genetic material for life: it was only when Jim Watson and Francis Crick came up with the base pair hypothesis that the double helix seemed the ideal form.

In this diagram, we can see the general similarity between a single and a double helix.

X-ray diffraction studies undertaken at King's College London provided part of the experimental structural data needed to solve the general structure of the DNA double helix. Yet, as important as these observations were other methods and disciplines were of equal importance in unravelling the overall structure, in particular the biochemical work of Erwin Chargaff and the biological insight of Jim Watson. X-ray diffraction work on DNA at King’s did not finish with the unveiling of the structure in March 1953 but continued for another decade as Wilkins and his team worked to test to the correctness of the "Watson-Crick" model.

Campaign to declassify Porton Down laboratory

2011-02-15T13:03:00.000Z

In 1968, an intense public opposition to chemical and biological weapons existed in the United Kingdom. This state of affairs was created by public anger and opposition to their use by the American government in the Vietnam conflict. Members of the public and environmental and disarmament groups became increasingly suspicious of the microbiological research establishment (MRE) at Porton Down, which was suspected of producing nerve gas. A campaign began to declassify the MRE at Porton Down.

The campaign starting point was on 18 July 1968 with Labour M.P. Tam Dalyell's parliamentary question: should the Porton laboratory be transferred from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Health and its work be made declassified? Maurice Wilkins and fellow Nobel Prize winners Cecil F Powell and Fred Sanger wrote to Prime Minister Harold Wilson in support and followed it up by orchestrating a press-campaign involving fellow Nobel Prize winners and Royal Society Fellows.

Wilkins systematically wrote to his fellow scientists about the issue urging them to write to Wilson. He received replies from the likes of Dorothy Hodgkin, Max Perutz, Richard Synge, Conrad Waddington and Sir Lawrence Bragg.

a copy of the letter that Maurice Wilkins sent to his fellow scientists

Some of those who responded declined to support the campaign, like his former biophysics department colleague, Dame Honor Fell. She, like many of those who declined, although sympathetic argued that the chemical and biological warfare research done by the microbiological research establishment had acted as a deterrent in the Second World War against potential German nerve gas attacks.

However, the majority of scientists who were asked agreed to support the campaign and twenty-one fellows of the Royal Society, including eight Nobel Prize winners endorsed the campaign. The result of the press campaign and mounting student and public anger was an official open day of the facility announced by Wilson scheduled for the 23-25 October 1968. Maurice Wilkins was one of a number of scientists who were invited to attend and his archive retains a copy of the official brochure produced for the visit.

Wilkins later recalled that “many scientists came on the Open Day and a more open-minded attitude to the work there seemed to be created. But we came away well aware that with weapons such as these it was difficult to tell what research was for offensive use, and what was defensive, aimed at protecting people from them”.

Here at King’s College London we have several collections on the work carried out at Porton Down and chemical and biological warfare in the Liddell Hart Centre Military Archives. Our large collection entitled “Gassed: British Chemical Warfare Experiments on Humans at Porton Down” the background research material for a book of the same name by journalist Rob Evans, charts the development of chemical and biological warfare there, the human experiments carried out and interviews with former employees of the lab. Another collection, Bad trip to Edgewood, provides information on research carried at Porton Down as well as extensive transcripts and notes on chemical and biological warfare research carried by the US Government from 1955 to 1975.

Radium Island: A short story by Maurice Wilkins, aged eleven

2011-02-02T10:12:00.001Z

Sometimes when working in an archive it is possible to stumble upon items that are truly unexpected, such as ‘Radium Island’. This charming story by a schoolboy Maurice Wilkins (written circa 1928 when he was eleven years old) tells of the adventure of Hugh O'Brien and Ronald Chrisp as they try to escape 'Radium Island'. What makes Radium Island interesting is not only its prescient title, given Maurice Wilkins' later work on the atom bomb "Manhattan Project", but also the classically boyish obsession with comics, new technology and war. It predates the first of W E Johns’ ‘Biggles’ stories by around four years.


Title page of Radium Island: The short story was written in a school exercise book for Wlyde Green College, Birmingham, the school Wilkins attended when his family moved to Birmingham and was probably written in 1928 (according to the older Maurice's recollection when he would have been eleven). The "Plan" refers to a map of Radium Island that can see be seen below.

Map of Radium Island: This rather technical looking map of Radium Island could almost be mistaken for an authentic representation until you notice some of the captions such as "where the duel was fought" or "sign of the green dagger". However, if you were to try to find "Radium Island" using the longitude and latitude readings you would actually find the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

As the above map suggests Maurice Wilkins was quite a meticulous and technically adapt schoolboy. Already at this age he was creating model boats, cars and planes in his father's workshop inspired to some extent by the magazine The Modern Boy, with its reporting of powerful fast new machines like the one time like "world record breaking car Major Segrave's 1000 horsepower Sunbeam". This fascination with science and technology crops up throughout the story, including this oddly accurate geological description of the presence of radium:

"Chrisp was sitting looking blankly at the wall, when all of a sudden he sprang up and grabbed O'Brien by the shoulder and made him look at the shining vein of carnotite which yields radium situated in the opposite wall!"

For all non-geologists, carnotite is the mineral deposit that contains both uranium and radium ore. Who knew? Maurice Wilkins aged eleven.

Beginning of Radium Island where Chrisp and O'Brien are held captive by the natives on the island but discover Radium in their prison

Illustration of airplane: One of three drawings of airplanes in the story. Rather wonderfully, the text describes how he had bought the plane broken from an adventurer who had "bad luck with it" and reconstructed, then flew it, ran out petrol, crashed, was rescued, mended it again and then did not use it again for lack of petrol.

Maurice Wilkins and social responsibility in science: In his own words

2011-01-27T17:11:00.000Z

In the previous post, I outlined some of the organisations that Maurice Wilkins was involved with that promoted social responsibility in science. In this post, I would like to cover Maurice Wilkins own thoughts on this subject and how they developed and changed in his lifetime.

“The Crisis in Science”

It was during the sixties that Maurice Wilkins entered the public debate regarding the value and implications of science and society. His 1962 Nobel Prize gave him the freedom and authority to “consider the wider role of science in life”. In his autobiography, he states how he found the global political situation made it increasingly difficult to continue his “quiet, steady biological work”. His awareness of the risks posed by the Cold War and the dangers of weapons of mass destruction is evident in his opening address to the “Social Impact of Modern Biology” conference held at the Friend’s House, London in 1970:

“The crisis in science today has not only direct bearing on the question of our survival but is of deep significance to our fundamental beliefs and at value judgements”

The newspaper, the "Journal American" reporting Maurice Wilkins' Nobel Prize award. Other news that day includes: an escalation in military tension between the US and the USSR over Cuba ( in what was later known as the Cuban Missile Crisis), US spacecraft Ranger 5 lifted off on its lunar mission while also in the news the first law suit over the prescription of thylidomide to pregnant mothers resulting in deformed children was also under way.

Underlining this crisis was a fundamental change in scientific thought, as Wilkins went on to elaborate:

“Yet even [though] scientists continue to work undisturbed, their attitudes to their work have, since the war, significantly changed. Although many scientists regard their work unquestioningly, in general there has been a perceptible change. The main cause is probably the Bomb: scientists no longer have their almost arrogant confidence in the value of science. At the same time non-scientists openly question the value of science.”

He, like a significant number of his colleagues on the Manhattan Project, regretted his involvement with the development of the Atomic Bomb. He felt that the bomb was a product of a compartmentalized pure science divorced from any concerns of ethics and responsibility. Wilkins resolved that this division should be removed to make science “better related to man’s wider hopes and needs: dehumanizing aspects of science would be reduced, science would be a force for changing and improving society and social responsibility would be implicit in the nature of science itself”

These sentiments regarding the crisis in science were widespread and echoed by other speakers at the “Social Impact of Modern Biology” conference, including the French geneticist, Jacques Monod, and the biologist, Jacob Bronowski. The historian of science Jon Agar, in his 2008 article in the Journal of the British Society for the History of Science, on the change in science in the sixties views the crisis in science as a combination of three pervasive 'waves' in the scientific community: the first 'wave' produced scientific experts and public divergent opinions; the second ‘wave’ was the creation of organisations and movements (such as the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science) that could act as a forum to debate and question scientific practice, and the final wave reflected the pervasive attitude of 'inward inquiry' that questioned the concept of scientific knowledge and its value to society.

Wilkins considered the development of the Bomb and chemical and biological weapons were an abuse of science, but believed that it could be redeemed by shifting its purpose back to the needs of society.

“The man in the white coat knew best”

In the years following the 1970 conference, teaching on the new “Social Impact of the Biosciences” course at King’s College London gave Wilkins an opportunity to develop and share his views. In a 1998 lecture, Wilkins reflected on the attitudes of the scientific community in 1970:

“…In 1970 many scientists saw science as giving certainty and truth; without science we would live largely in ignorance and superstition. Such scientists also had a simple faith that science applied would inevitably give us a better life. Roughly speaking, the scientist in the white coat knew best. That simple faith has considerably decreased. An important factor in this has been change in public attitudes to science; science has been criticised and open anti-science attitudes have increased. People are now less likely to believe ‘the man in a white coat knows best’ (in any case it is rather more likely than before that the scientist is a woman). It is important to realise that modern criticism of science has often arisen from the work of scientists e.g. on problems of pollution, climate change and environmental damage. Without that scientific work we would be barely aware that the problems existed. Also, solving these considerable problems depends considerably on continuing research. Similarly, medical studies have stimulated growth in broader, ‘mind-body approach to patients rather than concentration on treatment with drugs. Although science has become increasingly part of people’s lives, the people have tended to become more critical of the effects of science in the modern world.“

Wilkins’ attitude to science was influenced by his research in the historical, philosophical and sociological ideas that the course explored. On the development of the concept of pure science, he wrote:

“During the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century pure and applied science were not regarded as separable. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) believed the value of science (and in fact its very truth) derived from the beneficial application of science. But in the early 19th century the snobbish demands of educating the upper classes in universities, especially in Germany, required that university science be freed from its links with ‘vulgar; industry (e.g. soap boiling) and made socially respectable as a pure academic discipline like classics or philosophy. Pure scientists became proud of the idea that their science might have no application at all. The idea of pure scientific knowledge became associated with the idea of absolute knowledge which could be separated from the way it was obtained and from the way it might be applied and was therefore value-free, (and based only on unbiased observation and logic).”

One important element to Maurice Wilkins’ attitude to social responsibility in science is his belief in the social conditioning of science, which suggests that as science is a human activity it would be conditioned by the social and cultural environment where it is carried out. This is important because “science dominates our whole culture, not just as a result of its direct applications, but because it influences general thinking and attitudes to life”. Therefore, being able to judge the nature and value of scientific knowledge has become ever more desirable. His own understanding bridged both the objective and relative understanding of knowledge:

“There are two processes, somewhat opposed, operating in science: there is the essential element of objectivity and rationality recognised by tradition, and without which science could not have built up an enormous set of coherent knowledge. On the other hand scientists’ thinking is always to an extent influenced by cultural forces and prejudice. The ‘logic’ of science can go far in ruling out inappropriate ways of thinking, thus enabling science to lead us to a partial view of the truth. The debate about social conditioning of science is about the relative importance of the objective rationality of science and the subjective conditioning of thought. This will vary with the situation.”

Wilkins’ key example of social conditioning of science was the work of the Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976), whose own genetic theories were promoted in the

USSR

from 1928 to 1964 instead of the universally accepted Mendelian genetics. Lysenkoism was encouraged as it politically and philosophically was in keeping with Stalinist Russia. For Wilkins, it was the suppression of dissent and the central dogmatism that was the most corrosive aspect of the Lysenko affair. Yet the same charge he suggests (but not in such extreme fashion) can be made in those in the contemporary scientific world:

"while we condemn this we should recognise somewhat similar, thought not so extreme, dogmatism when some molecular biologist pronounces that human beings are ‘nothing but’ molecular machinery or when the psychologists take it for granted that IQ gives us a measure of intelligence on which we can base educational policy. Scientific knowledge need not be unavoidable truth. We should respect it but at the same time recognise its limitations, we should not jump to conclusions about its wider significance and we need to be very cautious in drawing parallels between animals and humans. “

To conclude…

“There can be no complete certainties in science but there can be a continuing process of enquiry and exploration"

Maurice Wilkins and social responsibility in science

2011-01-06T16:46:00.000Z

In previous posts, I have concentrated on Wilkins' scientific career and in particular to his work on DNA and the double helix. However, in this post I would like to explore the "social responsibility" aspect of the project. This phrase has become associated with Maurice Wilkins due to his links to the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) and the "Social Impact of the Biosciences" course at King's College London. Yet they also nicely summarise Wilkins' own attitude to the role of science in society and the need for a broader understanding of science and awareness of its implications. The following post will explore this general theme.

Cambridge and the Second World War

While Maurice Wilkins was an undergraduate at St John's College, Cambridge, he became a member of the Cambridge Scientists' Anti-War Group. The group, led by the eminent x-ray crystallographer John Desmond Bernal, researched the protection of British civilians in the likely event of aerial bombardment in any forthcoming war. They examined the possibility of poison gas attacks and incendiary bomb damage. Wilkins investigated whether a single incendiary bomb could set fire to the top of a building, burn through, and destroy an entire building, burning through many floors (as seen in the photograph on the right). He ignited an incendiary bomb on a platform of conventional floorboards. Whilst the bomb easily ignited and caused much violent flashing and burning, it only caused only caused minimal damage since the fire burned up and not down. The results disappointed the group, who believed the experiments could have been a powerful propaganda tool exposing the evil of German air attacks in Republican Spain and the resultant devastation of the town of Guernica. Yet the results of the experiments played out in real life: as Wilkins saw the same effect during heavy bombing in Birmingham several years later:

"In the street where I live the roof of the doctor's house was burning, and the hoses drenching the outside of the roof did not seem effective. I went inside and saw the ceiling under the burning roof was intact, and I broke a hole in it to put a jet of water directly into the roof space. But when I had finished making the hole I could see through it that the fire had already been put out. I felt embarrassed that I had damaged the doctor's ceiling..."

It was his move to study luminescence at Birmingham University in the Physics department under Mark Oliphant that would lead Wilkins to work on the development of radar and later the atomic bomb at Berkeley, California. His attitude to the bomb at the time was broadly supportive since its development was seen as crucial against continued Nazi aggression. Yet after the bomb's use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki he experienced growing unease about the consequences of such a weapon of mass destruction and realised that he wanted no further part in it. It was after the war whilst working at St Andrews University that, unbeknownst to him, he would catch the attention of MI5 due his subversive attitude towards the atom bomb. Wilkins was a keen supporter of sharing nuclear secrets for the improvement of international relations with the USSR. These views reported to MI5 and eventually led to his official monitoring (see previous post for details: http://dnaandsocialresponsibility.blogspot.com/2010/08/maurice-wilkins-accused-of-spying-by.html ).

1960s and Political Activism

During the fifties and early sixties, he concentrated on his research on the structure of DNA but did not abandon his interest in the broader responsibilities of the scientist. During his Lasker Award speech in 1960, he emphasised that the importance of the double helix should be considered not only in terms of scientific knowledge but also in relation to the human benefit that may be created by applications of that knowledge. The winding down of the DNA work at King's and the award of the Nobel Prize gave him the freedom to return to the problems that captivated him as an undergraduate at Cambridge: science and its relation to society. In 1968, Wilkins became a prominent member of the public campaign to get the government biological research laboratory at Porton Down declassified and was one of the eight Nobel Prize winning scientists who wrote to the Prime Minster , Harold Wilson demanding that the work should be made public. It was through this network of scientists and other academics that Wilkins got involved in the group that became known as the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) and was its President from 1969 to 1991. The society's importance and standing in the debate on science and values shown by the list of initial members as shown on the left.

Bogside Artists' mural of a boy running from CS gas in Derry

The aims of the Society were to stimulate an awareness of the social significance of science and the corresponding social responsibilities both individually and collectively, and to draw public attention to the implications and consequence of scientific development. BSSRS held its inaugural meeting in April 1969, attended by three hundred delegates and soon had a national body of a thousand members. The Society became a vocal advocate against the use of chemical and biological weapons in particular the use of CS gas. BSSRS led its own research into the gas' toxicity and organised its own team of doctors and social scientists to visit Londonderry, where the British Army had used the gas extensively. The Society gave evidence of the potential hazards to the government enquiry, the Himsworth Committee on the toxicity of CS Gas in 1969. BSSRS also launched pioneering projects on the effects of pollution such as the hazards associated with dumping toxic waste off the Cumberland Coast by the Atomic Energy Authority.

The largest event that BSSRS organised was an international conference on the "Social Impact of Modern Biology" held in London on November 1970. Over three days an average of seven hundred people per day gathered at the meeting that included talks from Maurice Wilkins, James Watson, Jacques Monod, Jacob Bronowski, David Bohm and Stephen and Hilary Rose. The conference acted as a forum to discuss the implications of scientific research with fellow scientists and the public and included such controversial subjects as "test tube babies" and questioning scientific objectivity. As the following letter from Maurice Wilkins to one of the participants, Professor Richard Doll makes clear the conference was largely a success. Many young scientists said that "it made them think" and it led to a successful book of the discussions of the conference, that has recently been republished ("The Social Impact of Modern Biology" edited by Watson Fuller). What typified the meeting was the discussion and the occasional clash (hence the mentioned abuse) between the "New Left" young radical scientists and the older more established scientists.

BSSRS never again achieved the same level of global coverage, but continued to have a presence especially through the work of local groups and its publication, Science for People. The 1970 conference also led to the development of the "Social Impact of the Biosciences" course at King's College London that still runs to this day. Maurice Wilkins summed up its overall impact in his autobiography, "The Third Man of the Double Helix" (2003):

[BSSRS] helped scientists to see there was no sharp distinction between pure and applied science, and that it paved the way for a broader, interdisciplinary approach to the problems of science and society".

A few examples of the elaborate cover art and issues raised by Science for People

Correpondence between Maurice Wilkins and Sir Mark Oliphant

2010-11-19T14:32:00.000Z

In this post, I want to highlight correspondence that I have recently come across between Maurice Wilkins and his fellow antipodean scientist, Sir Marcus Oliphant. The letters relate to Wilkins' biographical work on Sir John Randall for his Royal Society Memoir. Oliphant was a key figure for both Randall and Wilkins as he hired and supported them both as the Head of Physics at the University of Birmingham. It was there that the Randall-Wilkins partnership first began with research on on phosphorescence and continued in some degree with (the notable exception of the radar research by Randall and Wilkins' own involvement in the Manhattan Project ) until Sir John's retirement from King's College London in 1970. The correspondence between Oliphant and Wilkins are interesting in the insights that they shed regarding the creation of the cavity magnetron, shared ideas on scientific discovery and their mutual esteem for one another.

Figure 1

Figure 1: Letter from Maurice Wilkins to Sir Mark Oliphant, dated 23 March 1987. Wilkins sends Oliphant a finished copy of his Royal Society Memoir on Sir John Randall. He relates that he decided in his own account of the creation of the cavity magnetron to deal with the rumours regarding the possibility of John Randall and Harry Boot being influenced by Russian scientists before the war. He also states a deep gratitude towards Oliphant for his support at Cambridge [where Oliphant was his personal tutor], Birmingham [where Oliphant hired Wilkins after he left Cambridge with a second class degree] and at Berkley [where Oliphant recruited him to be part of his team working on the Manhattan Project].

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figures 2-4: Letter from Sir Mark Oliphant to Maurice Wilkins, undated [1987]. The letter begins by passing on the sad news of the death of Rosa Oliphant, his wife of sixty three years but his pleasure on receiving Maurice's letter and Royal Society Memoir. Oliphant recounts his own memory of the discovery of the cavity magnetron and how he gave the problem to Randall and Boot; Randall's brilliance in using the Hertz wire-loop detector; the difficulties in the lab between James Sayers and Randall and how close the Russians had come with their own research. In regards to Wilkins' remarks about him, he thanks him and states that he is proud to be associated with a Nobel Prize winner in Medicine and contributing to what Ernest Rutherford called the 'stamp collecting' of quantitative science [which was anything other than pure physics].

The correspondence makes interesting reading because of the honesty and clarity with which the two scientists view the developments of the cavity magnetron and generally their lives as a whole. As Maurice Wilkins wrote in his autobiography: "[Oliphant] had a down-to-earth approach to physics, and believed physicists should make their own apparatus. This suited me well, since I had grown up in my family's workshop tradition...Altogether, Oliphant was very good to me. I felt we were on the same wavelength" (p32-33).

Figure 5

The final letter in this series relates to my previous post regarding MI5 suspicion that Maurice Wilkins was a soviet spy (http://dnaandsocialresponsibility.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html). As a brief recap, MI5 began monitoring Wilkins after his defence of the British physicist and convicted spy, Alan Nunn May, was passed on by an informant when Wilkins was working in St Andrew University in 1946. Wilkins had argued heatedly in support of Niel Bohr's belief that atomic secrets should be shared with the international community. Oliphant states in the letter: " I remain convinced that Bohr's idea of openness, of a world without secrecy or barriers to any kind of communication, is the only way to achieve a world with out war".Sadly, we do not have Wilkins' reply but undoubtedly he would have shared the sentiment of his former mentor and friend.

A brief tour of the original artwork of Maurice Wilkins

2010-11-05T12:21:00.001Z

In today's post, I wish to offer a short tour of original artwork done by Professor Maurice Wilkins in the form of a series of playful and inventive cartoons that rather helpfully illustrate elements of the philosophy of science. The origins of these cartoons stem from Maurice Wilkins' involvement in the teaching of the course, 'Social Impact of the Biosciences' here at King's. He would also illustrate his Eddington Memorial lectures on the 'Origins of the Modern World View' (1978) with quirky artwork to illustrate certain points such as the example below: where the ancient and the modern thinkers both accuse the other of hubris in their attempt to understand the world.

Or the artwork could be purely illustrative such as this example of a hierarchy of angels...

It is however, his 'Social Impact of the Biosciences' period that we see Wilkins the artist at his most creative peak. Not many artists have attempted to graphically depict in demonic form the social conditioning that impairs objective vision (see Figure 1) or the general schisms inherent in western culture through the guise of Jim Watson and Francis Crick building the double helix (see Figure 2).

Figure 1: Cartoon of Man having his objective vision tampered with by marauding demons representing social conditioning in the way people perceive society

Figure 2: Cartoon versions of Jim Watson and Francis Crick observe with resigned horror the inherent fractures in Western culture.

A potted account of the research on DNA at King's College London

2010-10-18T17:09:00.000+01:00

In this post, there will be a brief overview of the research carried out here at King's on the structure of DNA. This of course is not a definitive history of the events and interactions which led to the discovery of a double helix. For a more comprehensive scientific history of DNA, I would recommend Robert Olby's book "The Path to the Double Helix: The Discovery of DNA" (1974). My purpose is to introduce some of the techniques and findings that occurred here at King's and relate it to the overall contribution to identifying the structure of DNA.

DNA enters the 'Circus'

The new Biophysics Laboratory created by J T Randall at King's College London was a lively and unconventional institution. Randall's ambition to create a laboratory where physicists could work on biological problems and vice versa were being realised at King's and an assortment of young research workers from diverse scientific backgrounds found their feet in these new disciplines. Maurice Wilkins was one of these workers. His first years at King's had proved fruitless in the field of ultrasonics causing mutations in fruit flies and he swiftly moved on to construct, with his colleagues Bill Seeds and K P Norris reflecting achromatic microscopes which he began to use on ultraviolet and dichroism studies on the Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV), nucleic acids and nucleoproteins. During these initial experiments with DNA Wilkins found a significant finding he wrote in 1962:

"While examining oriented films of DNA prepared for ultraviolet dichroism studies, I saw in the polarizing microscope extremely uniform fibres getting clear extinction between crossed nicols...each time that I touched the gel with a glass rod and removed the rod, a thin and almost invisible fibre of DNA was drawn out like a filament of spider's web. The perfection and uniformity of the fibres suggested that the molecules in them were regularly arranged"

Polarising microscope view of DNA fibre stretched at room humidity

The excellent quality of this extracted DNA was not through chance. The sample was supplied by Rudolph Signer, a Swiss biochemist who had been since the 1930s endeavouring to produce high quality extracted DNA. The sample made in 1949 with his student H Schwander made that grade. On the 12 May 1950, Signer was invited to the Faraday Society in Cambridge to discuss his work on preparing DNA samples. At the end of the talk he distributed bottles of his best DNA and Maurice Wilkins was one of the lucky recipients. Wilkins later reflected that this was "a generous act in the best tradition of science!".

Having witnessed the remarkable uniformity of the fibres, Wilkins took the DNA fibres to Raymond Gosling for X-ray diffraction. Gosling was the only person using X-ray diffraction techniques at the time to complement Randall's interest in the X-ray study of ram's sperm heads. Initially the two were unsuccessful the specimen to the film distance too large and the X-ray tube too weak to yield a pattern but they improvised as Raymond Gosling explains:

"I wound these fibres around a wire frame, forming a dense bundle which on the conventional Raymax tube produced a diffraction pattern recordable in a few hours. If that sounds rather scientific, I must tell you that the 'wire frame' was simply a bent paper clip and the 'dense bundle' was formed by applying Lepages quick setting cement, purchased from Woolworth's in the Strand!"

First multifibre specimen taken on the Raymax tube Unicam Camera, filled with hydrogen (1950)

The above photograph is the one that Maurice Wilkins showed at the Naples conference that so captivated Jim Watson. This was obtained thanks to a suggestion by Randall , by passing hydrogen thought the camera and sealing it where possible to prevent air scattering, which caused a fog on the film. From these images it was possible to demonstrate that the molecule was packed together like cylinders 2.0 nm in diameter and that the structure was very crystalline. The final study in this initial period was experimenting with the water content of the molecule. By drying and heating the specimen they obtained an amorphous scatter pattern .This contrasted when they repeated the process but wetted the hydrogen at 90% humidity for 12 hours prior to exposure and obtained a crystalline pattern similar tp the example above. This demonstrated that water played a vital role in maintaining an ordered crystalline structure.

X-ray Diffraction Years

In June 1950, the old wartime Siemens X-ray tube broke down leaving the department without a working X-ray diffraction camera. They soon obtained designs for new fine-focus X-ray equipment produced by Ehrenberg and Spear at Birkbeck College. Whilst the camera was being constructed Randall came to the decision that they needed a professional crystallographer to keep the work progressing. Rosalind Franklin was already on her way to the department as a research fellow to work on proteins but Randall expressed in a letter the change in orientation. The letter stated that "as far as the experimental X-ray effort is concerned there will be at the moment only yourself and Gosling..." and gave no indication of Wilkins' continued involvement on the project. This may account for the grievance that Franklin held from what she viewed as Wilkins interpreting her problem but this issue is in no way definitive and has been heatedly debated along with the wider recognition of Franklin's role ever since. Yet, it is best to leave the issue of Franklin and Wilkins relationship to one side for a moment and recount for what was actually achieved when she joined the department.

One of the first achievements of this collaborations was a vital one in solving the structure of DNA. Franklin brought her expertise to the job by fixing the humidity and the water content of the exposures by passing the hydrogen through saturated aqueous solutions of appropriate compounds through which the hydrogen could bubble into the camera at any given temperature. They soon found that the sodium salt of DNA supplied by Signer could transform into two forms, Structure A and Structure B.

Soon after this discovery, the division between the DNA workers at King's was cemented with Franklin and Gosling continuing to work with the fine focus X-ray tube using Signer DNA to outline the Structure A pattern of DNA whilst Wilkins and Alex Stokes used the old Raymax camera and work on the Structure B pattern using Erwin Chargaff's DNA samples. This situation did not change until Franklin left King's College London in February 1953 with virtually no communication between the two groups.

In October 1951 Wilkins, who had been reading Linus Pauling's famous paper on the protein alpha-helix , wondered why Pauling had not calculated the X-ray diffraction of the structure. After discussing the matter with Stokes he came back the next day with a Bessel function calculation of diffraction of a helix. The remarkable aspect of the 'Waves at Bessel on Sea' diagram was how much it corresponded to the new B diffraction patterns that Franklin was achieving. Franklin reacted furiously to her results being interpreted and the matter was set aside.

The following month November 1951, saw the unveiling of two DNA models: one by Bruce Fraser at King's and the other by Jim Watson and Francis Crick in Cambridge. Both these models were three chained helixes and lacked the key base-pair element. Fraser's model (as described in a previous post) was a closer approximation of the correct version as a fundamental flaw in the first Cambridge model was that the helix was inside out with the bases on the outside due to Watson misjudging the water content. The failure of the Cambridge model put a temporary injunction on the pairs DNA interest, whilst model building was not pursued at King's College London after Fraser left the department shortly after this.

At the start of 1952, Franklin, taking the advice of a Paris mentor, Vittorio Luzzati , decided to elucidate the structure of the A pattern using the crystallographic method of cylindrical Patterson function. This laborious method was a way of calculating the Fourier transform of the intensities of the spots on the X-ray films ,and involved measuring different reflexions of the specimen which required a new tilting microcamera to be designed for this process. In order to calculate the Fourier transform, Franklin and Gosling had to consult Beavers and Lipson strips (pictured below). Ray Gosling recalled that:

"These assembled the values of the periodic functions all set out at appropriate intervals and arranged sequentially in a handsomely polished mahogany box. I used to have nightmares...that I had dropped a box of 'strips' on the floor and had to sort them all out in the correct order!"

By the end of 1952, Franklin and Gosling had the preliminary results back for the cylindrical Patterson function of Structure A. Although in hindsight the data from the cylindrical Patterson and then the 3-dimensional Patterson analysis supported a double helix in the A form such a conclusion was not reached by Franklin who before leaving for Birkbeck College had begun to investigate the B form of DNA (with which, as shown in her notebooks, she would come close to solving the structure with).

The solution to the structure:

On the 7th March 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick finished the model of the double helix. The Cambridge pair started model building again after Watson was inspired on account of being shown 'Photo 51' by Wilkins when he visited King's on the 30th January. Watson deduced that a double helix rather than a triple helix fitted with genetic transference and was supported by the biochemical work of Erwin Chargaff who had discovered that the quantities of the base pairs were equal. On the 12th March 1953 the King's team were invited up to view the model. Wilkins wrote of seeing the model:

"...a feeling came through to me that the model, though only bits of wire on a lab bench, had a special life of its own. It seemed like an incredible new-born baby that spoke for itself, saying 'I don't care what you think - I know I am right' "

The diagram above on the left hand side shows some of the essential features of the double helix from the original paper by Watson and Crick such as the two sugar-phosphate chains running in opposite directions linked together by hydrogen bonded base-pairs stacked on top of each other. The diagram on the right shows a wire-model of the double helix used by Watson and Crick in their representation of the original double helical model of DNA.

Conclusion:

The contribution of the the Biophysics department at King's to the discovery of the structure of DNA was vital. The x-ray diffraction studies and other experimental methods provided the essential properties for Watson and Crick to elucidate the structure.Yet these achievements were not in isolation and needed to be combined with the knowledge acquired from Pauling and Chargaff along with many others to lead to the structure of DNA. The cracking of the structure should not be seen in terms of a race but the culmination of advances in chemistry, biology and physics spanning back to the nineteenth century when Fritz Miescher extracted DNA for the first time.

Fortieth Anniversary of the Discovery of the structure of DNA. Pictured from left to right are four of the five named workers featured on the commemorative plaque (exception being Rosalind Franklin) they are: Ray Gosling, Herbert Wilson, Maurice Wilkins and Alec Stokes.

Public unveiling of frieze celebrating Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins work at King's College London

2010-10-15T12:46:00.000+01:00

On the 13th September 2010 Principal Professor Rick Trainor unveiled the newly designed DNA frieze outside the Franklin-Wilkins building on the Waterloo Campus. The new permanent window display was sponsored by Ecovert FM to mark the 10th anniversary of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract with King's. The set of friezes depict the two scientists and the key developments associated with them that led to the solving of the structure of DNA. To celebrate the unveiling members of the Franklin and Wilkins family joined the Principal and the CEO of Ecovert Group Bruno Bodin for this special occasion.

(Left to right) Jenifer Glyn, her husband Ian, Sarah Wilkins, CEO of Ecovert Group Bruno Bodin, George Wilkins, King's Principal Professor Rick Trainor and at the front, George Wilkins' two sons.

The set of friezes on street level on Stamford Street give an excellent introduction to the DNA work undertaken at King's: for the representation of Rosalind Franklin it praises the X-ray diffraction studies that she and Ray Gosling took and couples her with her most famous creation, 'Photo 51'. It's visually arresting for the casual pedestrian or distracted student but the real treat is the detail on the friezes: the extracts and images of Franklin's notebook and a brief diagrammatic explanation of the significance of 'Photo 51'.


Frieze panel of 'Photo 51' with explanation below.

Maurice Wilkins the frieze acknowledges both the work that he achieved in the early fifties and the later work verifying the Watson-Crick model. Again the frieze is a fine tribute pointing out the early X-ray diffraction work and early helical interpretations harbored by Maurice Wilkins and his collaborator Alec Stokes.

Alongside these panels on the story of DNA is the impressive representation of the scale and enormity of DNA through a linear outline of a section of a double helix coiled around the three revolving doors of the entrance of the Franklin-Wilkins building. The creator of the artwork, Ian Chilvers of Atelier Works, aided by Dr Roland Roberts of the Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics here at King's College, scaled up a section of DNA from the smallest human chromosome (21) by a factor of 1.1. billion and applied the design to the doors used a frosted linear vinyl. The artwork gives a visual demonstration of the complexity of our genetic make-up: In order to depict the total size of this chromosome at this scale it would involve having to stack 10 million of these doors on top of each other- making it a staggering 20,000 km high!

Model of the DNA design courtesy of Atelier Works

The project is part of a larger renovation scheme by KCL and its facilities management partner Ecovert FM to reduce the ecological impact of all campus buildings. The Franklin-Wilkins building can now harvest rainwater for cleaning and toilets, reduce energy waste through energy efficient lighting and heating systems and even convert waste into biomass. This larger project would have pleased Maurice Wilkins who was a keen advocate of alternative energy use and would appreciate that a building that shares his name was pursuing an innovative and environmentally responsible policy towards energy consumption.

Exterior of the Franklin-Wilkins building on Stamford Street

New Flickr Set and Project Update

2010-10-13T17:33:00.001+01:00

Apologies for not updating any fresh content sooner but we have been busy here at King's College Archives regarding the Maurice Wilkins collection having participated in the recent "Story of London" festival where Maurice- and the scientific tradition of King's College London- were given star billing. The event allowed us to showcase some of the highlights of the collection and show off some of the numerous artifacts that we have alongside paper records with the collection. These include a number of X-ray diffraction cameras including the microcamera that Rosalind Franklin took 'Photo 51' with. Visitors also got to read extracts from the letters of Maurice Wilkins to Francis Crick and John T Randall from the early fifties and peruse are large photographic collection that ranges from X-ray diffraction images of DNA to official photographs of the 1962 Nobel Prize ceremony.

Hopefully there be shortly be a video of the evening that I can post and give a bit more body of the structure of the night and elaborate on its highlights (such as an unexpected appearance from Maurice Wilkins...).

In other news, I have just added a new Flickr set that gives a sample of the photographic images we have in the collection. The set can be found on the link below (or alternatively click on the photostream at the bottom of the page):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51665752@N04/sets/72157625030543691/

Lost Wilkins-Crick DNA correspondence discovered

2010-09-30T12:05:00.000+01:00

Maurice Wilkins is in the news yet again thanks to the discovery of a lost series of correspondence between him and Francis Crick on DNA. It had been previously believed that the early correspondence between him and Francis Crick had been lost in a moment of over-zealous house-keeping. However, due to moving laboratory muddle, part of Francis Crick's papers were mixed with those of his long-time DNA collaborator, Sidney Brenner while they shared an office in Cambridge. Brenner's papers were recently donated to the Cold Spring Harbor Library Archives, where nine archival boxes of material belonging to Francis Crick came to light.

John Steinbeck, Maurice Wilkins, James Watson and Francis Crick at the 1962 Nobel Prize ceremony (Steinbeck won his for his contribution to literature)

The correspondence with Wilkins consists of thirty four letters and three postcards between 1951 and 1964, which include eleven written between 1951 and 1953. The newly discovered letters shed light on the tensions present between the two laboratories, the strained relationship between Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin and the informal arrangements behind the famous note by Watson and Crick to Nature on the structure of DNA. Of particular interest is the complaint regarding Crick's dismissal of the Bruce Fraser DNA model; the anger felt by Randall towards Watson and Crick's involvement in DNA and above all the good humour and wit found in Wilkins letters to Crick that reflect their strong friendship.

The new Nature article by Alexander Gann and Jann Witkowski, entitled "The lost correspondence of Francis Crick" gives excellent insight into the letters and a chance to view samples of the correspondence:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7315/full/467519a.html

One or two other news articles also worth perusing are:

An article on the discovery and context around the letters can also be read on the Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/29/letters-dna-double-helix-francis-crick

To hear an interview with Raymond Gosling's witty and informed take on the newly discovered letters for BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/today/tomfeilden/2010/09/scientific_feuds.html

DNA Story at King's: The Hidden DNA workers

2010-09-24T14:18:00.001+01:00

Fortieth Anniversary at King's College London of the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1993. Pictured are four of the five names commemorated in the grey plaque on the background wall ( from left-right they are: Raymond Gosling, Herbert Wilson, Maurice Wilkins and Alexander Stokes)

On the unveiling of the grey plaque to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the discovery of the Double Helix at King's College London, Maurice Wilkins said these words:

"I'd like to emphasize that my presence in front of this plaque is to emphasize all five names there, including that of Rosalind Franklin who is not able to be present".

This magnanimous gesture was not just based on politeness and modesty but reflected the key collaborative effort required to provide the experimental data needed to crack the structure of the double helix. In this blog, I will provide a little background on some of the key collaborators at King's during the early years of the DNA work at King's who have been somewhat overshadowed in DNA history due to the grand narratives of Jim Watson and the biographers of Rosalind Franklin.

Raymond Gosling (born 1926):

Raymond Gosling is relatively well known in the DNA story because of his collaboration with Rosalind Franklin on the X-ray crystallography of DNA. However, Gosling's role in the DNA story pre-dated Franklin's arrival at the lab and it is this work in collaboration with Maurice Wilkins which was also of great importance to the discovery of the double helix. He first joined the lab as a PHD student under the supervision of John Randall in 1949 and began working on the cell nucleus. This approach soon led to Gosling working on studies involving DNA and by 1950 Randall asked Gosling to gather information on ram sperm using X-ray diffraction. These fuzzy pictures were in rough accordance with the X-ray diffraction pictures of DNA by Astbury. The introduction of Signer DNA and the expert manipulation by Wilkins to obtain DNA threads allowed Gosling to improve these initial results and produce X-ray pictures that showed DNA's crystalline structure. With help from Randall, Gosling and Wilkins were able to produce the "Structure A" form of DNA through the bubbling of hydrogen through the camera to prevent air scattering. In early 1951, Rosalind Franklin joined the lab and Gosling was transferred to work under her in a crystallographic analysis of DNA. The crystallographic work of the two provided a key component to obtaining the structure of DNA by vastly improving the crystallographic images and distinguishing structures A and B of DNA. There collaboration continued until Rosalind Franklin left of Birkbeck College in early 1953 and is thankfully well documented due to the survival of Rosalind Franklin's experimental notebooks (found at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge) and also several articles the two published in Nature and Acta Crystallographica.

Alexander Stokes (1919-2003):

Whilst Gosling was the diligent lab worker, Alex Stokes was the theoretician who provided the crucial mathematical interpretations of the x-ray diffraction studies in order to guide the King's team in the right direction. Stokes was one of the initial appointments into the unit by Randall and came with valuable experience of X-ray crystallography from his time at the Cavendish Lab in Cambridge during the war. What distinguished Stokes from his other colleagues was his consummate ease in translating the patterns created on an X-ray diffraction film into a description of the atomic arrangement using his skills in mathematics. For example, it was Stokes who first noticed in 1950 that the X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA gave an indication of a helical structure by the absence of diffraction along the length of the molecule. Stokes later used complex mathematics in the form of Bessel functions to underline this, by famously working it out on a single train journey from his home in Welwyn Gardens City to London before christening the diagram, " Waves at Bessell-on-sea".


"Waves at Bessell-on-sea" by Alexander Stokes

Herbert Wilson (1929-2008):

Though Herbert Wilson arrived six months before Watson and Crick unveiled the double helix to the world, his work with Maurice Wilkins uncovered essential information regarding the structure of DNA. Wilson arrived at the biophysics unit in September 1952 under tenure of the University of Wales. He soon began X-ray diffraction studies of DNA, nucleoproteins and cell nuclei under the guidance of Maurice Wilkins. The two collaborated on a number of investigations beginning in the autumn of 1952 comparing, under different humidities, different samples of DNA (such as pig thymus, squid sperm, and wheatgerm DNA). Their observations confirmed what Franklin and Gosling had concluded that the phosphate groups were found on the outside of DNA. They then extended the study to look at the effect of undried preparation of live trout sperm to support the hypothesis that the drying process had no affect on the in vivo structure which it subsequently confirmed. The importance of these comparative studies was affirmed by the growing number of samples that were collected that not only showed para-crystalline patterns but also the A-type of DNA. This indicated that the crystalline appearance of DNA was not laboratory induced but occurred in biologically active samples and that the work of Franklin and Gosling would have universal applications.

The Molecular Configuration of Nucleic Acids", twenty six people along with organisations that contributed. Along with those mentioned already they also include from King's Sir John Randall, Bill Seeds, Bruce Fraser, Geoffrey Brown, Gerald Oster, Watson Fuller and Struther Arnott.

The Biophysics Research Unit

2010-09-21T14:30:00.000+01:00

King's Biophysics Department Prospective (1962)

In understanding the role of Maurice Wilkins and King’s in the discovery of the double helix it is necessary to explore the background of the Biophysics Research unit. This Medical Research Council (MRC) funded group was crucial in the discovery due to its unique status as the only interdisciplinary biophysics laboratory in the UK. Its self-consciously hybridised and almost dilettante approach to science bore fruit not just with the landmark discovery of DNA but also in regards to the pioneering muscle work of Jean Hanson and the research on collagen under J T Randall.

Biophysics in a Bombsite:

The Department owes its creation to the vision and direction of Sir Professor John Randall. He had been appointed Wheatstone Professor of Physics at King’s in 1946 and part of his initiative was to have a separate biophysics department alongside the existing Physics department. It was Randall’s fantastic aptitude to wheel and deal that secured government funding for the unit through the Medical Research Council in 1946. This was shortly followed by Rockefeller Foundation granting funds for special apparatus such as electron microscopes and X-ray diffraction apparatus. Whilst money was not a problem the physical devastation of the Second World War was.

Construction work begins on re-building the Physics laboratories at the Strand Campus (1950)

The impact of German bombs had left a crater 58 feet long and 27 feet deep and had completely destroyed the Physics laboratories in the basement of the quadrangle. Randall described the facilities as appalling but pressed the College for new rooms which he obtained in 1950 and was shortly followed in 1952 with an even better space in the form of the reconstructed quad laboratory in the Strand. Recruiting staff for the new unit was also relative ease with Randall transporting the core of his staff from his old St Andrews Department, including Maurice Wilkins who became his right hand man. Although established scientists were unwilling to join Randall’s venture he did manage to attract bright young scientists who were interested in interdisciplinary work. The likes of Jean Hanson, Geoffrey Brown, Bruce Fraser and Raymond Gosling joined the department in these early years.

The “Circus”:

Although the biophysics unit at King’s was the bright young thing of the British physics scene this did not lead automatically to stellar success. The staff had to find their feet in new disciplines as physicist tried to be a biologist and vice versa. Randall in his 1951 Royal Society lecture on the unit described the lab as “an experiment in co-ordination centred in a University physics laboratory”. As an experiment, some failure was expected but this however was seen by some, such as Maurice Wilkins as not a bad thing: “If our programme had been thought out more clearly in advance they would unavoidably have been dominated by existing ideas as a result would not have provided the fullest opportunity for new ideas to arise”. In Maurice’s own case is own failure with ultrasonics led to microscopic work on sperm heads that convinced him in 1950 that DNA held genetic material. The enthusiasm and spirit of innovation is perhaps best captured by this a further recollection by Maurice:

“In one room in 1948 I remember two physicists setting up reflecting ultraviolet microscopes with a technician grinding and polishing quartz coverslips, a physicist trying to construct a high voltage electron microscope for direct study of thin tissue culture cells, another physicist smashing cell nuclei in a blender to make ‘Mirshy chromosomes’ and a biological technician handling tissue cultures under the expert supervision of Honor Fell”.

This frantic inter-disciplined laboratory was not the only reason why it began to be referred to as “Randall’s Circus” in King’s corridors. The spirit of the lab was maintained by hilarious Christmas parties with irrelevant songs, dances and once an opera being performed that pointed out the absurdities of the lab and made everyone laugh. This was complemented by the annual summer cricket match where J T Randall would take centre stage with his solid batting displays.

The collaborative, congenial and diverse scientific skills of the biophysics unit helped advance science in several directions during this period. It should be remembered that the discovery of DNA was not down to a few individuals but a number of scientists from around the world.

Christmas in a Biophysics Laboratory when you don't have enough decorations at hand- here J T Randall is depicted as Father Christmas whilst on his right hand side, Maurice Wilkins makes an angelic appearance (1960s)

Maurice Wilkins: A brief biography

2010-09-21T10:16:00.000+01:00

Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004): New Zealand born Nobel Prize winning biophysicist

The Nobel Prize winning biophysicist is chiefly known for his experimental work that led to Watson and Crick discovering the correct double helical structure of DNA. The importance of Wilkins, and that of the King’s biophysics department in the discovery of DNA has been somewhat overshadowed by the dynamic duo from Cambridge ( even to the extent that the publisher of Wilkins’s autobiography thought to mention in choosing the title, “The Third Man of the Double Helix”). This is a disservice to both pioneering DNA work at King’s which paved the way for its discovery and which as an institute spent the next decade after the discovery confirming the validity of the Watson-Crick model.

His early life and education:

Maurice was born in Pongaroa, New Zealand in December 1916 where he lived happily until the age of six before his father, a medical practitioner, moved his family to England in 1923. Whilst living in Birmingham, Wilkins began to display his characteristic ingenuity and craftsmanship as he built his own telescopes and microscopes to pursue his interests in astronomy and optics. He won a scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge in 1935 to study physics but due to both his eclectic tastes in physics and his preoccupation with university politics he obtained a low second degree in 1938. Although disappointed by the result, Wilkins’s eclecticism and good fortune allowed him to join his former tutor, Mark Oliphant, at Birmingham. Oliphant had been impressed by Wilkins’s ability and interest in thermoluminescence and phosphorescence and set him up as the research student for a certain, John Randall- whom Wilkins would enjoy a fruitful, if not fractious thirty year collaboration. Wilkins made rapid progress in Birmingham obtaining his PhD in luminescence in 1940.

He was subsequently recruited into the Ministry of Home Security and Aircraft Production to work on the improvement of radar screens. In 1944, Wilkins followed Oliphant to the University of California at Berkeley, to work on the Manhattan project. Although Maurice played a small role within the project he became increasingly concerned about the ethical implications of atomic weapons and like many of his colleagues turned away from atomic physics to pursue biophysics inspired to some extent by Erwin Schrodinger's book, What is Life? (1944).

King’s College London:

After returning from California after the war, Maurice decided to rejoin Randall’s research group at first at St Andrew’s University in 1945. This group then moved in 1946 to King’s College, London where Randall was appointed the Wheatstone professor of physics and had obtained funding from both the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Rockefeller institute for a new Biophysics Research Unit. This new MRC unit was fairly unprecedented with interdisciplinary work within science not being a common occurrence. Maurice was integral in the early years of the institution with innovative work in adapting microscopes to use optical, ultraviolet and infra-red light. He turned to studying DNA, on Randall’s bequest in 1950. Working closely with the PhD student, Raymond Gosling and the mathematician, Alec Stokes they started to produce the first crystalline diffraction patterns for DNA. This formative period convinced Wilkins that DNA had a clear crystalline symmetry and could be readily pursued. It was whilst at a conference in Naples in 1951, that Wilkins showed a slide of their results that excitedly transfixed a previously bored and distracted Jim Watson as he realised that the structure of DNA was possible to study.

Later that year, Wilkins was joined by Rosalind Franklin to work on X-ray diffraction experiments on DNA. The need for a professional crystallographer was essential for progress on the structure but due to misunderstanding over each others role the two fell out splitting the laboratory where Franklin and Gosling would continue working on the X ray diffraction of the A Crystalline Signer DNA whilst Wilkins and Alec Stokes (and later Herbert Wilson too) would work on the “B” form though without access to the Signer which was a remarkably pure form of extracted calf thymus DNA. Franklin and Gosling produced enhanced the quality of the X-ray diffraction photos thanks largely to Franklin’s expertise in crystallography with the vital “photo 51” being taken in May 1952 as a consequence. The teams effectively worked in isolation and it was not until 1953 when Franklin had left for Birkbeck College that any unified King’s response occurred. By then it was too late. Watson and Crick cracked the structure of DNA in March 1953. Somewhat unfortunately,the spur for Jim Watson's new attempt at model building had been seeing the marvellously clear helical pattern of "photo 51" and deciding to discard experimental data pointing to three chains and opt for two.

Yet, to Maurice’s credit rather than throw in the towel he and the department of King’s continued to work on DNA. The process of checking the validity of the model was required especially with the constant bombardment of competing models appearing during the fifties and sixties. The work was painstaking and the refinement of the Watson - Crick Model took seven years. The toil was however worth it with the Albert Lasker Award being given to Maurice, Watson and Crick in 1960 and a general indication that a Nobel Prize would be soon on the cards.

With Science comes Great (or Social) Responsibility:

Whilst the DNA aspect of this project is self evident, the ‘social responsibility’ requires explanation. This phrase embodies Maurice’s dual pursuit of a scientific profession but with a social consciousness. This distinct direction was present from his Cambridge student days where his anti-war activities led to him investigating the effect of incendiary bombs (the devastation that they ensured had only just been witnessed during the Spanish Civil War). Despite, and in some ways because of his work on the Manhattan project, Maurice became an ardent opponent of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and a member of organisations such as CND and Pugwash. In 1968, his opposition to biological and chemical weapons led him into contact with Hilary and Stephen Rose and together they set up the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science with Maurice serving as President. The initial aims of the society were to challenge the belief that science was a ‘pure knowledge’ that only caused harm through its application and therefore ridding the scientist any mental anguish on the ethical implications of this research. This reductionist approach to science was abhorrent to Maurice who believed the practice of science to be embedded with human values and should therefore be made to be held accountable for its impact on society. His passionate belief that the broader implications of science should be taught led to the creation of the “Social impact of the biosciences” which is run to this day in the Biophysics department here at King’s.

Fortieth Anniversary celebration of the discovery of the structure of DNA (1993). Pictured (left-right), Raymond Gosling, Herbert Wilson, Maurice Wilson, Alexander Stokes.

DNA model building: The Fraser Model

2010-09-08T16:31:00.001+01:00

Model building by Watson and Crick famously led to them being the first to that discover the structure of DNA was in fact in the form of a double helix. It was the orientation and the manipulation of the central spine of base-pairs that proved essential to solving the structure. However, this approach to solving the structure of DNA was not unique. Model building was in vogue in the world of biophysics, thanks to the pioneering work of Linus Pauling on helical proteins. Previous DNA models had been already attempted by William Astbury and Sven Furberg but they were not based on the more accurate experimental results of the King's biophysics department and were therefore inaccurate as they were calculated to comprise of only one chain. The first attempted model to use the experimental results of the King's biophysics department was built in late 1951 by Bruce Fraser. Fraser was at the time a research student in Bill Price's spectroscopy group, King's biophysics department, and had been asked by Maurice Wilkins to try his hand in building a DNA model.

Annual Physics Cricket Match: pictured (left-right) unknown, Margaret M'Ewen, Maurice Wilkins,
Bill Seeds, Bruce Fraser, Mary Fraser,
Raymond Gosling (standing) and Geoffrey
Brown, 1951.(KDBP/PH/1-311)

Maurice Wilkins recalls in his autobiography being beckoned by Fraser to view his helical model of DNA:

"Bruce had done a good job: the model was very interesting. The three helical chains had the right pitch, diameter and angle, and were linked together by hydrogen bonds between the flat bases which were stacked on each other in the middle of the model".

The model illustrated well the general understanding of DNA in the lab: the structure was helical based on the work of Wilkins and Alex Stokes; the phosphates were on the outside as indicated by Rosalind Franklin; the stacked central core of bases, or "pile of pennies" as shown by the x-ray diffraction photographs first achieved by William Astbury. However, whilst the model showed many of the correct characteristics in retrospect, it also reflected certain errors current at the time. A three chain structure was based on the water content and density data for DNA.Whilst both Wilkins and Franklin could not envisage anything less than three with that information (and had both separately told Fraser that the model had to be three chained) the Fraser model contradicted the X-ray diffraction data by showing the three chains to be equally spaced. The hydrogen bonding between the bases was also incorrect and the structure did not fit with Chargaff's 1:1 base ratios. The end result of the model was one of collective frustration as it summed up how the King's group had become trapped in the belief of a three chain structure and with no guidance as to how to construct it.

The model was never published, Bruce and Mary Fraser left the lab shortly afterwards and moved to Australia in 1952. There was a final act of drama as Maurice Wilkins urgently cabled Fraser in 1953 asking him to write up his model asap for publication in Nature.

Telegram received by Maurice Wilkins from Bruce Fraser regarding publication of note on DNA model ( annotation by Maurice Wilkins)

Fraser worked throughout the night to finish his note on the model, but Maurice Wilkins decided in the end not to submit it for publication alongside the other papers for Nature in March 1953 as it compared unfavourably with the Watson-Crick model. Maurice Wilkins later regretted his decision as the Fraser model showed for the historical record how advanced the thinking was at King's. Below are copies of the original note:

To read more about Bruce Fraser and his DNA model there is an excellent interview with him on the Australian Academy of Science website: http://www.science.org.au/scientists/interviews/f/bf.html

An earlier and more comprehensive blog on Bruce Fraser and his model is also available on the Linus Pauling blog: http://paulingblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/the-fraser-structure-of-dna/

Maurice Wilkins accused of spying by MI5

2010-08-26T17:51:00.001+01:00

In a case of unusual coincidence, Maurice Wilkins has just today hit the headlines thanks to the publication by the National Archives of Security Service files on his activities. Wilkins was investigated between 1951-1954 by MI5 having been tipped off by the FBI that an Antipodean scientist, working on the Manhattan Project, had revealed information to American communist party members, including the "New Mexico set up". What is fascinating about these documents is that they both reveal aspects of Maurice's post-war lifestyle and the remarkable paucity of evidence that Wilkins could have been a spy.

The investigation against Wilkins began from a tip-off by the FBI that an Antipodean scientist had been informing Communists Party members from Brooklyn, New York and they transferred this scientific material to the USSR. Of the nine antipodeans involved only a few were believed to be possible candidates: Eric Burhop and Maurice Wilkins. Burhop was the strongest candidate due to communist political sympathies and was subject to a much longer investigation. The consideration of Wilkins only became an issue due to the inconclusiveness of the Burhop investigation and also prompted by a report by an informant from St Andrews University. Wilkins returned from the United States soon after the war to a biophysics position at St Andrews University, it was here that the informant met Wilkins and reported his "strong left leaning tendencies". It was his vehement defence of the British physicist, Alan Nunn May who had been accused of passing on nuclear secrets that caused the most alarm. Wilkins believed that passing on secrets connected to atomic energy was justifiable and that scientists were free to use their own knowledge how they wanted. Whilst, this opinion was seen by the informant as a potentially treasonous remark it should be noted that there was an opinion with a number of other atomic scientists, such as the famous Danish scientist, Niels Bohr, that the atomic secrets should be shared with the international community.

A group photograph at a nucleic acid meeting in the United States (c.1955) with Wilkins standing on the left hand front row.

The investigation seems fairly low-key on the whole as the MI5 did not want to alert Maurice Wilkins of their activities. Instead, they began monitoring his movements and communications. The bulk of the documentation in the files are collected copies of received post, e.g. letters to estate agents, passport renewals and bank statements and letters from his family. The authorities did however approach Sir Harold Himsworth, the Secretary of the Medical Research Council, for an assessment of Wilkins and were provided with a written report on him by an anonymous informant who was at contact with him at King's. A previous report from an MI5 informant who met him at Birmingham before the war, described him as a "very queer fish" but whose associations were broadly left wing socialist rather than communist. The latter report described how his politics had mellowed and he now "come into College every morning with a copy of the Times, which he had apparently read on the journey". It goes on to describe him as a "caricature of a scientist" but "who recognises his own failings and tries to get over the difficulty with consultations with psychoanalysts".

The impression of Wilkins in the paper are of a high principled, left-leaning shy young scientist who was dedicated to his work and friends. That he was seen as a "caricature of a scientist" was not lost on Wilkins reflecting in a later talk on the perception of science at Goldsmith's College in 1980 on how his outside appearance embodied the stereotypical scientist. Yet, such an assessment would be a gross disservice to him as he above all believed that the boundaries of a scientist were artificial and its relationship to art and spirituality should be encouraged.What is ironic about this assessment of Wilkins are in relation to his politic sympathies- from the sixties onwards Wilkins become as active politically as his scientific career, mainly in the form as President of the British Society for the Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) which was regarded as radical left wing organisation in the seventies.Wilkins's political activism saw his personal participation in the campaign to get the biological research work at Porton Down declassified and gave evidence to the Himsworth enquiry on the detrimental effects of CS gas in Northern Ireland. His advocating for nuclear disarmament in the seventies and eighties led to a number of high profile public appearances lobbying for their discontinuation, most famously of all meeting Pope John Paul II in December 1980 on the subject.

Postscript:

In an earlier draft section of Maurice Wilkins's autobiography discussed the Nunn May and Klaus Fuchs espionage cases. He points out that although having never met Nunn May their paths had crossed- both had been educated in Birmingham; studied Physics at Cambridge University and during the war he was invited, as a war worker, to stay at the Nunn May residence, south of Birmingham to avoid the heavy bombing. Wilkins sympathised with Nunn May as he "like other high principled and independently minded young men I knew, he would have been indignant with Churchill for not keeping his promise and for having concealed from the Russian the very existence of the Atom Bomb Project". Yet the most interesting passage is Maurice reflecting on his own prospects as a spy:

"Looking back to the time I worked on the Manhattan Project in Berkeley during the war I am glad to say that no one ever approached me for secret information. It would have been foolish if they had, because I was one of the least experienced scientists and had no detailed knowledge except in relation to my particular problem. In any case, to have worked as a secret agent like Nunn May or Fuchs would not have appealed to me at all. It would have been better to have openly discussed with colleagues the need for the Allies to share information with the Soviet Union".

The Randall Letters: The DNA Story at King's Revisited

2010-08-23T11:00:00.001+01:00

The exciting aspect of our cataloguing project is the potential surprise and revelations that might occur when going through Maurice Wilkins' uncatalogued papers. Of particular interest is anything relating to DNA and in particular to the "DNA story" that followed. This topic has been well mined and publicised due to the buzz and controversy of Jim Watson's account, The Double Helix, first published in 1968. Whilst the book has been lauded for being the first personalised autobiographical book on a major scientific discovery the book offended many of the key protagonists, especially Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick. It was however, the treatment of Rosalind Franklin that created the biggest outrage and caused a chain of events that would eventually lead to this obscure scientist being lauded as one of the greatest female scientists of the century. This constant re-assessment of the DNA narrative had an affect on Maurice Wilkins who had to constantly redress the issue throughout his life.

One of the key trails of thought that Wilkins had after becoming aware only after reading in Robert Olby's book, The Path to the Double Helix (1974), was that Rosalind Franklin was misinformed of her position in her correspondence with Randall. The letters stated that she would be working with Gosling on the problem and it did not mention that Wilkins would still be working on the project. This was further implied by his non-appearance at the first meeting with Franklin due to him being on holiday in Wales. These events allowed Wilkins to gain some understanding of her later behaviour in telling him to leave the DNA work to her and to "get back to your microscopes!". He further speculated that this failure to notify Franklin of his continued interest in DNA was not an oversight but a deliberate attempt by Randall to get in on the DNA research. Wilkins justified this by the fact had a long term research interest in DNA dating from the forties and had initial given him the task of using X-ray diffraction on squid sperm heads. Whether this was the case is difficult to speculate but fortunately we have found in Maurice Wilkins's personal papers letters from Randall written in 1951 that support his assessment.In a letter dated on the 5th June 1951 ,whilst Wilkins's was in Naples, Randall wrote:

"I shall be in direct charge of any X-ray work on sperm: I planned this particular experiment a long time ago and would like to see it through. As you know, I tried unsuccessfully to get you and others interested in the optical properties of sperm and sperm nucleoprotein in 1948-49 and met with very indifferent response (and the wrong answer!)"

He added:

" I am inclined to think I have been far too generous of my time and mental effort in feeding the laboratory with apparatus, people, and ideas, and that it is time I took charge of more definitive programme myself"

The letter seems to corroborate Wilkins' view that Randall wanted to have greater authority and input in the DNA project and was frustrated by the slow progress being made.

Although this letter seems to confirm Maurice Wilkins' assessment about Randall's domination being detrimental to DNA research at King's. We are fortunate to also have extracts from Randall's own account in a letter to Wilkins from 1976:

Letter received from J T Randall to Maurice Wilkins, dated 5th January 1976

The letter is refreshing as it gives candid comments on several aspects that crop up regarding DNA work at King's such as the treatment of women, the atmosphere in the lab, relationship between Franklin and Wilkins. From the above, what stands out is that Randall emphasizes the point that it was Wilkins initial absence from the first meeting that proved fateful and if he were present his "standing in relation to DNA and your interest in it" would have been recognised.

Many more documents regarding the story of DNA are being unearthed in the papers of Maurice Wilkins, including letters and opinions from Francis Crick and Raymond Gosling along with Wilkins's own detailed research for his autobiography.

New blog! Now with pictures, videos, links and opinions!

2010-08-17T15:08:00.000+01:00

This new blog for the project, DNA and Social Responsibility will hopefully provide an interactive guide to the papers and life of Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004). The current blog that can be found on the the King's website
(https://www.kcl.ac.uk/blogs/dna/) is functional but sadly cannot support the use of pictures, audio clips and videos. This new blog allows such diverse media which is fantastic due to the sheer number that we currently hold within our archives.

To illustrate this...


Maurice Wilkins photographed soon after being awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962

And to prove the first was not a fluke...


The many faces of Maurice Wilkins

Brilliant!

Anyway, this new blog will continue to function in tandem with the official King's DNA and Social Responsibility blog but will provide a different perspective by allowing readers to glimpse at some of the documents that we at King's are uncovering, such as below:


Letter received by Maurice Wilkins from the Dalai Lama in his capacity of the President of Food and Disarmament International to gain support of Nobel Laureates to support a manifesto against starvation in the developing world.

The Dalai Lama, was but one, of the interesting characters that Maurice Wilkins came into contact with during his eventful life. In the forthcoming weeks I hope to provide more insightful glimmers of our work and to popularise his often forgotten role in what was arguably the greatest biological discovery of the twentieth century.